Mental wellbeing in university environments

Natasha, your role as director of the Center for Higher Education, Research and Evaluation, what does that evolve?

Dr Lackovic

The Center for Higher Education Research and Evaluation is situated within the Department of Education Research, and Lancaster University for educational research at Lancaster University. And it is one of the oldest centers in the world conducting higher education research.

We are committed to enhancing and transforming the higher education sector and its role in society economy and culture. The center has two directors. So I'm one of the directors and center directors provide academic leadership of the center.

So this means things such as organizing centers, meetings, seminars or webinars, workshops, other things of strategic importance to the center, such as responding to student and staff needs, developing reviews, local international collaborations, and centrism. zimage and its key activities. The center is also associated with our research programs in higher education.

Okay, if we go a layer deeper into this topic of wellbeing and specifically student wellbeing at universities today -from from your position, what do you see as being the key issues that are affecting student wellbeing at university?

Dr Lackovic

Tough question. I think that one of the key issues is is an increase in the demand for student well being services which can outweigh the capacity of the services and wellbeing services are constantly under pressure and work at full capacity. And another thing is that there is a need for a whole university approach to mental health so that it becomes a strategic priority at universities.

And this This is part of of the most recent strategic framework called step change mentally healthy universities published by Universities UK and CO developed with student minds University mental health charter. So the strategy means seeing mental health as a multifaceted phenomenon you know, that needs to be tackled across four domains, which are learned work support and and live.

So no learn, it actually tackles the curriculum and how students learning relates to their mental health and work is linked to staff well being support, what kind of support is needed to, you know, prevent particular conditions in, in especially prevent suicide and live is linked to living conditions and student accommodation, for example.

So this approach aims to develop structural, practical and environmental conditions for healthy universities, which means healthy learning, working support, living spaces and lifestyle, I suppose.

Is this a recent problem, or it's always been there, and is perhaps just more awareness of the issues in terms of student mental wellbeing today than they were 20 years ago, or 40 years ago for the previous generation?

Dr Lackovic

Well, I personally think that it has always been there, but probably there is, as you say, there is a greater awareness these days, and I don't know, perhaps, there are other other I'd say structural influences, you know, contemporary pressures, that students are facing.

Students are also now under the pressure to repay the student debt. And its difficulty, you know, this this generation of students like the new generations of students, they are in a not, they're not in the same position, for example, to find jobs or get on the property ladder, for example, as it used to be. You're saying you're referring to 20 years ago, so.

So I think these these new pressures, I'd say, and now we have the COVID. Is it is it COVID, post COVID situation, but another things that are, I think, increasingly weighing students? I think it's it has been intensified probably, of last, I don't know, maybe 1015 to 20 years.

I think there's a lot of similarities between the massive increase in dialogue and debate around mental health in the workplace, that has emerged over the last 18 months in response to to COVID, and what you describe in universities.

Bigger organizations are, there are some who are not doing as much as perhaps they could, but there's certainly some organizations and businesses that are really making massive changes to how they operate and how they address and respond to and in some senses, prevent mental health issues getting out of hand. But have you seen the same experience in the world of education and particularly UK universities?

Dr Lackovic

Well, I think the COVID crisis affected students, but also staff wellbeing in in profound ways. A switch to online learning, you know, that meant that students had to organize, but also stuff and their lives, I mean, our lives and Hall University engagement, then experience around working and studying from home, you know, or being students being isolated in student accommodation.

Think about students from in the UK from faraway places, such as China, a lot of students had to actually stay and isolate themselves on campus, for example. So there are studies that show how the COVID crisis affected students in in negative ways, and I can provide the link to these studies, if you wish. But in that, in our project, we did a survey of more than 120 students, and found that COVID-19 Really, I 10, certified, the importance of healthy and supportive environments.

You know, and the, this, this the importance of space, where you live, learn and work, but also the, I'd say the, you know, the blurring of the boundaries between work, life and learning was difficult. And, and if we talk about students, but I'm sure the same can accounts for for staff, the proximity to nature, as well as bringing, you know, the nature indoors, you know, through plants are even engaging with pets, animals that provided a source of comfort, the source of wellbeing / positive emotions. Yes. So so it was a struggle for I think, a lot of people. Yeah, so so that.

So you have the two big categories there, right? You have the student accommodation, which is typically perhaps the first year of the university experience after which many students, as I remember, then find their own accommodation independently. Right. So let's call it that first year in equivalent of halls, but and then the environments themselves on campus. So if we look at the accommodation, there seems to be quite a bit of movement in the student accommodation market, particularly private real estate developers doing things aimed specifically at students that look really quite revolutionary. How do you see what's happening specifically in terms of accommodation?

Dr Lackovic

Well, that is a good question. And although I'm not an expert in that, and I don't have an in depth, insight or understanding of, you know, the accommodation services and provisions, I am aware that there is some good work and and interest and student well being in in the organization such as United students and because, you know, they cover the entire kind of, I'd say, accommodation space or landscape in the UK kind of different regions and and I know that they have very vigorous interest and supporting student mental health and improving the conditions that kind of living conditions for students. For example, I just just wanted to deal with through something that I am aware of,

Are you seeing developments on campus itself in terms of creating environments with more biophilic design or nature around and perhaps taking your pets into the library with you is a bit too much for obvious reasons. But, you know, are you seeing changes? And did you see that there's perhaps more effort being made in terms of creating study environments that are productive and promote creativity and productivity? Or do you think there's still a long way to go in terms of universities in general, catching up with perhaps what we're seeing already and in the world of office design?

Dr Lackovic

That's another interesting question, Matt. So, I mean, I can, I can first we'll say a few, you know, reflections in relation to what I am aware, when it comes to Lancaster University. I started working at Lancaster University in 2014.

So it has been seven years and I have kind of witnessed, you know, the transformation of Lancaster University campus into a nicer I would say, more green and well being continues conducive environment, if that's the right expression, so many, many things that are environmentally friendly, and also, you know, that take care of, of sustainability and, you know, the university's outlook towards sustainability, we're also adopted, so you know, things like trees, you know, new trees planted.

The the university itself is on a very, very green field, situated among the beautiful rolling, Green Hill green rolling hills in Lancashire, and that is a very, I'd say, nice environment. So it's worth mentioning that there is a big difference between campus based university spaces, you know, such as Lancaster, especially, you know, the the campuses that are situated in the nature, it is literally, that that's what the case with Lancaster University campuses and, and the campuses that are, I don't know, like city based campuses, if that makes sense.

You know, these are very, very different types of university buildings, and they, they would, I think, look very differently. So, that's what I can say that I have seen a lot of changes, for example, you know, the refurbishment of the library to make it a kind of nicer environment for students more I guess, pleasant, when it comes to both, you know, learning but also socializing as well.

And but, but still, I guess, there is there is much work to be done on really enhancing, you know, the well being unsustainability, potential and, and need that that can that can actually improve staff and students well being and mental health.

Matt Morley

So you mentioned that, again, their staff and student mental mental well being, and clearly there's perhaps the temptation just to think of students, but in fact, the ecosystem of, of mental well being on campus or at a university is made up of both those who work there, the staff and the students. So do you look at both sides? So there really there are sort of perhaps different issues affecting students versus us as the staff, but you do tend to sort of consider both, is there a big division between them in terms of how the research is treated looking at the two different groups?

Unknown Speaker

Well, it's true that research can separate you know, these these two groups, but I personally think that we're both you know, in the same boat, okay. So, staff wellbeing is part and parcel of healthy universities, right. So due to the high workload then and pressures associated with working at universities, staff also need support when it comes to healthy working environment.

And you know, when it comes not to the healthy working environment, but also tackling student mental health, you know, how we support our students and how we support ourselves and also how we can strike the right balance, you know, the right lifework balance so stuff mental health is central to the domain of work I referred to earlier, if you remember when when I talked about that strategic framework, step change mental health in universities and the whole university approach.

And so you mentioned the the research project that you've recently completed with 120 students, I think you mentioned was that was that the research project that gave birth to the latest online book that you've published things in the mind?

Dr Lackovic

Yes, that's right. And for that project, we co developed a graphic novel, together with students about about their experience of mental health, in relation to everyday materiality. And when I say everyday materiality, I'm talking about spaces, places, environments, and everyday personal objects and items.

But we didn't only develop the graphic novel, we also did the students survey in order to understand better how students felt and how they experience their environments and the objects that surround them. And on daily Bailey basis.

Certainly, from what I've seen of having read through, I think it was a sort of a pre release copy that you kindly shared with me. But you know, I was it was fascinating to see some of these themes around what I would call, say, like Biophilia. So connection to nature, and how you'd picked up in the novel, without it being about interior design or architecture. And yet there was, you know, it was a recurring theme of the connection between student mental, like, so the internal well being, yeah, and the external spaces in which they're spending their time. Can you talk to us on that theme, because it came up again and again. And it was, it was great for me to see it being positioned in a completely different way to a very new audience, because it's such a, it's a topic that's so relevant, and you you got there completely organically just through responses from the students, it seems.

Dr Lackovic

Yes, it was really interesting and exciting and transformative for all of us to go through that project. It was transformative for me. And I also learned a lot from our students, co creators. And in the role of spaces, places and everyday objects that students encounter in one word materiality is really a new field in mental health and student mental health research in particular, and if you prefer also educational psychology, so but it is related to an established field of material culture and different approaches that address materiality in human and university experiences, you know, such as certainly materiality studies, for example.

I mean, I won't get into any any detail of these approaches, I'm just trying to say that what is new and our study is actually exploring every day environment and objects in the context of mental health and well being and especially student mental health research.

And so, you know, there are studies actually that showed the role, the positive role of indoor places and all this is particularly designed, you mentioned biophilia, so biophilic design of indoor places and you know, how they can have positive effects on on well being. And if there if there are if the conditions, the environmental conditions are not that great, and then there is of course, negative impact on wellbeing and mental health.

So there are lots of things there, you know, atmosphere, the feel of the place. And and it's it's such an interesting area, there were so many things that students referred to ranging, you know, from mugs, you know, to staircases, environments, such as the gym, or the library, you know, the canal that is not far from Lancaster University, because that's the, you know, where, where our students participants were situated, you know, around.

And so a really wide range of environments and objects that students actually related to deeply, and they saw their well being and lived, you know, authentic mental health experiences through those environments and objects. And for them, that was something new, that they actually, you know, before they did, that they hadn't done before.

And that was really transformative for them, when we when we asked them, you know, how they felt about it. So I think it's a really exciting field, and it opens up a lot of potential for different avenues, you know, to explore in the future, including, of course, the role of biophilia and biophilic design.

I think what's most encouraging about it for me is that, you know, for those of us working in, effectively, you know, the field of real estate interiors, you know, we can get a little bit myopic, we can sort of, you know, get lost in our own world and using our own terminology for things.

What I got from reading the, the graphic novel online was the, just how raw it was, and how the students were effectively communicating a very deep instinct, they didn't have the terminology that an interior designer or an architect might have, and they didn't need it, but they still understood something inside them was telling them, that the space around them, and their relationship to that space was was vital.

And if they got it wrong, if they weren't getting out to walk by the canal, or spend time with the dog playing in the park, or whatever it might be, it almost became, I think, and it was so well communicated in some of the visuals, it became the sort of Oh, messy room, underground, unpleasant gym, no time in nature, negative mental mood state, versus positive mental mood state for someone who had a tidy room and organized life and was able to spend some time in nature. And it was just so simple and natural that it clearly came to them. without there being any theory behind it.

Dr Lackovic

Yes, absolutely. You put it so well, Matt. So I think this is this is the power of visual storytelling as well. And and how we worked, you know, with the students, because we invited students to develop their own scenarios to share their own feelings about how their surrounding environment and everyday objects and personal items that you know, that they use, regularly how that relates to their mental health.

And, and because that was new to them, it also posed the kind of creative challenge. And I think just as you say, they they really did a wonderful job of almost intuitively presenting something that, you know, we can find evidence on what they actually expressed in research, but also that aligns with, you know, the principles of biophilia and biophilic design as well. And for me, that was another thing that, you know, fascinated me as the research and kind of project investigator. I think

In many ways where we're talking about or we can be can be in very different fields, education, higher education, research and evaluation, interior design, workplace well being but actually we're often talking about similar things, perhaps using different language, but ultimately getting to similar experiences and trying to find ways to improve on that. Those physical spaces because once you understand the impact and you see how you can make a difference or encourage people to to adapt their lifestyle a little bit. So what happens next for for your you've published the book, the graphic novel, online? Where do you go from here? What other projects? Do you have? Or do you intend to you're going to evolve what you've done and take it forward? Are you moving on to other projects?

Dr Lackovic

Oh, I would really love to develop this further. So you know, we recently launched the digital resource that embeds a graphic novel. And the novel lead was not referred to it as some kind of unnamed object is called things in the mind.

And so what would happen that the launch we had the conversation with, you know, different stakeholders, different people and professionals interested in student well being but also interested, and the role of the art and design in mental health and well being.

And I think that the next step for for the project is to, and for me, is to continue this work, because we have had a really positive feedback from students and from stakeholders, such as well being services and health services.

And at the moment, I have been developing an interactive, digital resource that embeds different kinds of interactions in order to engage readers, you know, with these different interactions on the selected page of the graphic novel, of course, it readers choose to interact with them. And they can just briefly, you know, sketch what these interactions are.

So there are questions to learn about different things. So like, multiple choice questions. And there are also questions to answer by the readers. So there are opening questions that readers can answer. And that helped will help us also collect further data, you know, deepen our understanding on, you know, students experiences further.

And third, they're also the so called information points that offer a diverse range of information and insight voicing for for readers, you know, who will be students who can be actually any person interested in well being and mental health and the role of everyday environments and objects in our lives. And this can be also embedded in in the word quinoa and diverse stakeholders practices. So I'm very hopeful and excited about what could happen next, Matt?

Active Travel in Healthy Buildings

An interview with James Nash, founder of Active Travel Score

https://activetravelscore.com/

What is active travel?

Active travel is any traditional or any non-motorized transport that isn’t cars, trains, public transport, or buses, for example, so any small, lightweight, possibly motorized way of getting around like an E-scooter, but also running, walking, or cycling to / from a building.

The journey started for me around about 15-16 years ago. When I was at university, I did a business management degree. And going into my final year, when I was into it, I went to Vienna of all places, and I was just struck by how popular cycling was there. And obviously, everyone thinks of Holland being bike friendly. But I was surprised. And it's the first time I'd seen a bicycle rental system on the street. So I just thought “bikes”, yeah, this is going to come to the UK at some point. And it just stuck in my mind.

Then as part of a final year project, I had to come up with a business idea. So myself and six others in our group, if you like at university, and our final year, had to do quite a business idea, and ours was coming up with a bicycle parking product, which we designed. The two of us left university and we decided to set up a business selling bicycle parking products. And we did that for the best part of 10 years. And that grew.

Most obviously, the kind of uptick we saw in cycling across the UK over the past. Sort of, we've seen it for about 15 years now. But then it got to the point about four or five years ago when we saw the opportunity for a certification within active travel. So we launched what was cycling school and is now active school.

My other business is Bike Dock Solutions as a product seller of bike racks and bicycle parking products. And we notice that day in day out, we were giving advice to architects on how to best layout cycle facilities are active travel facilities within commercial and residential buildings, off the large scale, sort of the skyscrapers you see all around London or any other major cities.

So we realized there was an opportunity and and a lack of knowledge of how to do this. So that was really the I suppose the brainwave or the lightbulb moment that there really needs to be an educational tool for the market, the real estate market, and so he started cycling school.

Designing active travel into a building

I think the government planning authorities have really got to grips with this over the past 15 years, in terms of putting the infrastructure into buildings. So storage for bikes, for example, or soon to be storage for E scooters. They genuinely have really started to be demanding for bike racks for new builds. And I'll say that really made developers get their head around it.

Over the past 10 years, planners have been asking for it and developers have been putting it in. There's now a real business case for putting in good active travel facilities in buildings - landlords see that they drive up rents and longer leases for their tenants or their residents. It's simply what people want from a building now.

City planning and active travel

So if it's a residential development, it varies up and down in the UK, and it varies across the world as it should do because cycling. And active travel cultures are different city to city, country to country. So it's important that there are different standards out there, because you don't want to be over subscribing, the number of bike parking spaces within a building, or under subscribing.

So it may be two, it needs to be out of a block of, say, 1000 apartments that get built. And the planning authority will say we will only grant you planning permission if you provide to bike parking spaces per apartment. And it isn't this thing, these aren't kind of like, oh, we'd like you to do this. But we'll give you planning anyway. You have to do it now.

So for example, 22 Bishopsgate, which is a commercial development in London, and it's the largest office building in Europe. It's actually got 1700 bike parking spaces within it. And that is because they had to do it for planning. Hmm. At the moment, are there too many spaces in there for the occupancy levels? There probably is, however, in five years time, or 10 years time, will there be, you know, under-utilization? Absolutely, based on the way active travel is go in, those spaces will get filled. So there needs to be an element of future-proofing to these new developments that are coming along.

Green building standards and active travel

Out of the two is it developers who listen more to green building standards or city planner? I'd say it's the planners. So the idea is have the full control because at the end of the day, if you don't meet their planning commands, requirements, right, that you build your building.

And so they're the most important than site and the fact that particularly in say London, they their demands are very LV demanding. And we are a lot of our clients often will get us involved because they want to send check some of the numbers because they put in an application for planning and then realize how many bike racks I have to provide.

And I think will easy is actually feasible. And so often we'll work with them to get their heads around it. And to explain that yeah, these are you can't think about these V spaces for now, you've got to think of the next 10 years. And then when they realize actually the long term value for putting in these spaces now. And they're a lot more comfortable with Yeah, going into it and stop stopping argument with the local authority or often the planners who asked him for these to go in now.

Healthy building standards

However, I'd say secondary to that. I suppose yourself, you know, how popular now these green certifications are and the health and wellbeing ones like well, lead Breann they're slowly but surely put in more importance on active travel. So they're really beginning to understand its importance in improving buildings overall, whether it's for the standard sustainability side of things or the health and wellbeing side of things.

Active travel facility design

It is important to bear in mind that what makes an active travel facility isn't just the infrastructure. So when I say infrastructure, I mean, the tangible things you can see, and you can touch. So they are extremely important. And so for our certification, they're worth 70%, of what we score. However, on top of that, and I'll go into more detail about what makes good infrastructure in a minute. But on top of that, what is very important is services.

So it's the softer measures within a building. So 20% of what we score, for example, is the active travel services. So is there a bicycle maintenance mechanic that can come to, to the to the building, once every quarter, or once every six months? Is there a laundry service provided for the tenants within a building or residence. So it's the softer measures as well. So that's something else we really want to say.

And the final 10% is future proofing. So what we want to see is that there's a plan in place that the building has to cope with the increase in active travel that we're going to see going forward is so important, especially now, with the post pandemic era where active travel has seen a real big uptick, it's probably sped things up by at least probably five years in a lot of areas, I'd say, in terms of the popularity. So it's not just infrastructure, it's the overall picture of the softer measures as well.

But in terms of blank canvas, infrastructure wise, that's what everyone thinks of when they want to see in is good access. So ideally, we don't want to be having people who are going by active travel, crossing with motor vehicles, we want to have it set completely separated, so their own insurance, so there's no risk of being hit by car, for example. We want security to be good.

So at least two layers of security because, unfortunately, a lot of the methods of active travel such as cycling or a scootering. They obviously bikes and scooters do get stolen very often. So security is extremely important. We like to see two layers of security. So it's a lot harder for someone just to get in, take a bike on a scooter and get out. Once you're inside the facility.

Designing active travel facilities

What we would love to see is a mixture of racking systems. So we'd like to see low level racking systems for and what this enables is for people who may not be able to lift the bike, or maybe have three wheeled bike two tracks, for example, to be able to park their bikes securely. And we like to see a scooter of X starting to appear. Especially as although there are illegal emojis now, building managers need to start thinking about them, because within the next year is pretty much guaranteed that personal e scooters are going to be legalized in the UK.

Active commuters

We also like to see if it's commercial office space, we want to see good high quality showers as well. And that's important so that people will encourage the cycle there's no barrier there to think I'm not going to ride my bike this morning. Because I can't shower when I get to work. We want to see good, good good shower facilities. Lockers are very important because lockers for that so that people can store their items or clothing.

So for example, some people may choose to run into work and then have a shower. So what you want we want to see is enough lockers so that cyclists who want to put their helmets and their bike lights or whatever it might be in a locker, obviously do have a locker but then we need an over provision so that foreigners can actually use have a locker as well.

We'd like to have a really nice look and feel where possible. So by this we want to see the spaces to be not just whitewash blank walls that traditionally is what you get, and are pretty uninspiring we want them to look more like front of house. So if you went into an apartment block or you went into a reception of a commercial building, we'd like to see the active travel spaces, looking more like that soak some color and make them inviting and some of our clients have even chosen to have music playing in their active travel facilities now, so it really is like Front of House As we think it should be. So in terms of infrastructure, that is what we'd like to say.

Active travel and active design

In years gone by it made sense to have spent all this money on reception areas and have all these amazing artworks and think God isn't this great.But then for years, people you could have the other it could be MD of Deutsche Bank who's in your building will actually cycle to work. And they're literally parking their bike in the bins near the bin storage under the under the building. And it doesn't really make any sense. Because if you're a landlord of that building, you want to keep them that bank they're in and you see you need your whole building to be a nice experience. However, there's I can guarantee 90% of buildings in London, probably very much still like that, it despite how much it's been made, and how things are changing. And so it's the whole whole, the whole building needs to be a good experience. And if there is, is less likely tenants or residents are going to leave, and you might be able to charge them more.

Healthy real estate and active travel

And so what's amazing is that a lot of that kind of traditional thinking is, well, an old building, there's not really any point making any effort it because, you know, all these new builds can come along and just put bite racking in and make them look great. But in reality, that's not the case, it's the investment really isn't anywhere near as much as what I think a lot of developers or a lot of existing landlords are building think is, especially when you consider the benefit of it in terms of long term to business case, in terms of how to keeping people tenants happy or attracting tenants because you know, there's there's, there's there's a lot of movement, as always, in real estate are people coming and going. And so it helps to kind of give yourself a bit very best chance if a building or company taking space knows their employees are going to have a great experience when they get into work, parking their bike, having a shower, going for one at lunchtime, whatever it may be.

the future of active travel facilities

If we went up to the pandemic and what I've seen in terms of the increase in active travel in the 12 or so years up until that point, and I'd say Most commercial buildings, certainly, and residential because of what was happening with planning anyway, would look completely different than the the facilities would be so much better. Just because of the way culture and people were naturally shifting across to active channel.

As I said, I think that pandemics may be going to actually take somewhere along this line, as five years out of that, in terms, it's going to make it happen so much quicker, because we're seeing now the the levels of people going into work by bike, even though people just started going back into London, for example, at Bristol, Manchester, and clients are getting inundated with cyclists in particular, people wanting to use the activetrail facilities.

So crystal ball wise, I'd say it's going to be completely different quantity wise how I don't know. But I wouldn't go far to say you've got a building like 22, Bishopsgate, being built in central London, and they're having to put 1700 spaces in their square footage is around about 1.3 million. I believe I might be wrong on that. But it's not far off. I would say that in five years time that there'll be asking for at least two and a half 1000 bike racks. I can't see how they won't be possibly 3000. So it kind of shows where we're going to go. Overall.

Well healthy building standard and active travel

With WELL, it's more of a focus on the cycling side of things, because that's what they tend to look at, at the moment, mainly at. And so I'm an advisor to them on the movement side of the certification. And so they're they certainly over the past five years, taken more, obviously, more than interested interest is the wrong word. But they realize it's more important than it was before. So that that's why they're there.

They're great in that they always any subjects, they've got so many advisors, and they always try and cherry pick people who are seen as an expert in an area and to work with them to help them develop their standard out. So that's what I've done over the past few years. But they're a really good example of a certification and they're all doing the same. Please be doing the same Breann or doing the same lead, which is obviously more popular in the states are doing exactly the same as well.

Active travel experts

Architects are extremely good at what they do. But there's no way they can have the knowledge that say we do an active child facilities because we spend day in day out doing it. So they just know why they can have the same knowledge. So what what kind of worked really well for us is ultimately we, when we started the certification, we realize that the certification was really going to work well because it enabled buildings to get educated guess and work out how good their facilities are, and now allows buildings to who've got good facilities to have a seal of approval and use it as a marketing tool.

But also the certification allows buildings that maybe aren't so good at the moment and aren't scoring particularly well to go on a journey with us over a period of however many years to overtime, improve their facilities and subsequently improve their score. However, we also realize that yes, there is a slight knowledge gap in terms of designing actual facilities.

So that's why we wanted to have a design service alongside that. So if we have a client that's working on a new development, or they want to undertake a refurbishment project, potentially for an existing building, we can work with them to help them and their design team to, to produce the very best facility possible with the space they have, the budget they have, etc, etc, and then certify afterwards as well.

So it's working extremely well. And I'd say, we tend to work most of our clients on the design side, we're working with clients, architects, rather than us doing the job of the architect, which yes, we can do. And we did do that for that building in Bristol. But most of the time, we work alongside a client's existing architect to ensure the very best outcome for the active travel facility.

Active Travel Score Certification fees

Yes, so the certification, we think it's pretty good value. I mean, we see a yearly fee of 1195 pounds for the certification, and we have a two year license period. So a client would have to sign up for a minimum of two years, so works out to be Yeah, just under two and a half 1000 pounds in total, as a commitment. And over that period, we'll work with them to try and improve their facility.

And after the two years, if they wish to renew it, and then that's what will happen, and hopefully, they'll score even better next time around. And it's, the idea is, it's almost like an insurance policy, I guess, for the client. So that while active travel is obviously taking off more so and increasing year on year, they don't get left behind.

So that's the certification. And in terms of the design advice, where we work with architect, we charge 3000 pounds, and that includes the design advice workshops with their architect, and a two year certification period as well.

Active Travel Accredited Professionals

We've literally launched our Accredited Professionals program in the past month, we'll call it a little bit of a soft launch. So far. Because we it's no isn't finished, we're actually not charging for it. Because we want to just make sure the offering is as good as it can be. And ultimately, we do see it being obviously useful for us in terms of being able to scale active score, internationally. But also, we think it will be an extremely useful tool for people who want to get more educated on the subject.

So architects who are going to be working on active trial facilities, project to project for example, I think this would be really, really useful for because we'll take them through the over you know, what makes a good facility and be able to keep them up to date with trends.

So for example, a bike rack a bike charging racks are coming in a scooter charging Max are coming in. They're just two new things that architects currently will know very little about, or where to get them for, so we can help them with that. So yeah, the AP program we do think although it's new, we do expect it to be very good for us.

https://activetravelscore.com/

Healthy sustainable furniture by Benchmark UK

Talking healthy materials, circular economy principles, biophilic design and Life Cycle Assessments with Benchmark Furniture, in Berkshire, UK.

Welcome to Episode 34 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast, in which we explore the themes of sustainability and wellbeing in real estate and hospitality. 

I'm your host, Matt Morley, founder of Biofilico healthy buildings and Biofit wellness concepts. 

This week I’m in Berkshire in the English countryside talking to Sean and Laerke Sutcliffe of Benchmark Furniture.

Set up by Sean with his business partner, the late Sir Terence Conran, in 1984, Benchmark may be an artisanal workshop of 70-plus people but they have also been trailblazers in pushing forward the theme of green and healthy furniture in recent decades.

They’ve worked with Foster + Partners, Westminster Abbey, Oxbridge Colleges, museums and countless public buildings around the world. In our conversation we cover:

• How they stance on sustainability has evolved over the past 40 years to incorporate health and wellbeing

• The history of VOCs and Formeldehyde in wood workshops

• The link between tropical timbers and deforestation

• Vertical integration as a way to control the provenance of their work

• How hiring apprentices locally ensures long-term staff retention

• Their brand extension into healthy upholstery using NaturalMat filler

• Life Cycle Assessments and the metrics of environmental impact that matter

• Their thoughts on ‘biophilic furniture’ and the medium of wood

If you like this type of content, please hit subscribe, you can find Benchmark at benchmarkfurniture.com and my contact details are in the show notes for feedback and comments.

• https://www.instagram.com/madebybenchmark/

• Made WELL Sustainability Report

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CONVERSATION

our workshop considers both People and Planet, our carbon footprint and the transparency of our materials

here we are on a redundant farm, employing more people than the farm ever did in agriculture in high quality artisanal jobs

We produced the first wooden furniture in the world that had fully verified lifecycle assessments

I hope a time will come when we will base taxation of products, not on an arbitrary figure of the of the pecuniary value but on their carbon cost

as human beings, our oldest and most trusted relationship with any material is with wood

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FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI

Matt Morley

I would like to start with a question around your the positioning of the business itself. So you seem to have this wonderful combination of craftsmanship, sustainability, and responsible business practices. And it feels so now it seems so current, and yet, you've been around for a little while. So I wonder if you could place that in context? Did you set out with that initial vision, and the world has aligned or has it been more of an evolutionary process over the last 30 years or more.

Benchmark Furniture / Sean Sutcliffe

So we set out 39 years ago, when we started the workshop, with a highly unusual stance in the furniture making community I took a rather stubborn stance that I won't use any tropical timbers. And people were quite dismissive, and some people are quite offended. But I had been learning as a young man about deforestation, and particularly a prime forest. And so my stance then was - we like to use wood, but we won't use any tropical timbers. Because that way, we are not deforesting, and we're not using any endangered species. And that was our stance for many years.

What's happened over the intervening nearly 40 years now is that the argument has moved. And so what is our stance is now not so much that we won't use tropical timbers, although we choose we prefer not to. But it now embraces so many other things that we've learned over the last 40 years.

We were the first workshop in the UK to go zero formaldehyde, the first workshop in the UK with FSC chain of custody (FSC) Certification - we've we've always tried to look ahead at the way that the sustainability arguments and the health and wellbeing arguments have gone.

People tend to think that the health and wellbeing argument is pretty new. But actually, 25 years ago formaldehyde became the hot topic. And what we're saying today will change tomorrow, because the situation on the ground will change, science will change, imperatives and priorities will change. Now everyone's very focused on carbon. But, some while ago, everyone was very focused on acid rain, say or eutrophication.

Laerke Sutcliffe

But I think it's also interesting to sort of look at it from both the planet and the people angle. And that has become quite important for us within the last six years to have a position where we both consider the carbon footprint and the transparency in the materials that we are using. So being that workshop, or that destination, where you as a customer can come and buy your product and combine the carbon footprint, and the non toxic material considerations together.

Matt Morley

You mentioned the word transparency there - clearly, a responsible business, in a way needs to take ownership for presumably a bit more than just that final piece of the puzzle, have you adopted this process of vertical integration? And what role has that played in helping you get to where you are today?

Benchmark Furniture

We've done it over a long period of time. But in truth, most of our vertical integration came about through a simple desire to have more control over the quality of our work, and the provenance of our work.

Nowadays, vertical integration also gives us more control over the wider aspects of employment practices, diversity practices, and so forth that play into the supply chain argument. So we happily, frequently get asked quite deep and complex questions about our supply chain, and the more that we can supply from under our own control the simpler that process is.

Of course, we've still got our materials supply chain. But in terms of subcontract supply chain we use very, very few subcontractors.

Matt Morley

You also mentioned the idea of employment practices. And it's something that really comes across in terms of your communication online, the idea of adopting responsible work practices that really seem to be a part of your DNA and as a business, was that an instinctual process?

Benchmark Furniture

Yeah, I think I wish I could say there was some greater and higher good about it, but actually, it was very simple. A realization some years into running the business and training people, that if you employ locally, your retention is much better.

So we started off employing graduates and students, or craftsmen from far afield, you know, other parts of the UK or overseas, and they’d come to do a few years, and then normally go back to their places of origin so we thought, well, this is mad, we started employing and training apprentices only from my local area.

It may sound a bit mean, but when when aspiring apprentices apply to training here, if they haven't got a pretty local postcode, they're not in the running. That a self interested thing about keep retaining staff. But of course, what it also plays into is our journey to work miles are very low.

We have very long employment profile here. And so we really do care very deeply, we've got second generation staff here, which is very gratifying. So it started out purely as a way of keeping staff. But it actually has evolved into a very good employment practice in terms of local employment and, and artisanship.

The countryside has lost most of its skilled jobs. And here we are on a redundant farm, employing more people than the farm ever did in agriculture in high quality artisanal jobs.

Matt Morley

There is then also that connection in terms of the materials as well, a key piece of a healthy interiors and healthy building strategy. So employing and working locally. And then as you mentioned, not using tropical woods. So could you talk to your vision of, of cradle to grave lifecycle in terms of the materials that you're using for your products, and perhaps place that in the context of the wider industry? Because it's not necessarily an industry that's known for getting everything right, in that sense, but you've really taken a stance on it.

Benchmark Furniture

Yes, and we, we have the great advantage that we our principle material is wood, I mean, 99% of everything we make originates as a tree. So we have a fantastic advantage in terms of sustainability, providing that we're making sure we're buying our wood entirely from sustainably forested sources. And that's an absolute must for us, you know, we will only do that.

The materials that do extend beyond wood into upholstery, for example, we've changed radically our approach to upholstery, because that's where there is use of petrochemical foams, which is almost ubiquitous in the in upholstery world. They're very nasty business.

We were really lucky that some 10 years ago, we started working with Imperial College London on lifecycle assessment. So we did this as some projects that we did with the Royal College and, and the American Hardwood Export Council, looking at measuring the the real proper metrics of cradle to grave lifecycle assessments. We produced the first wooden furniture in the world that had fully verified lifecycle assessments.

And we've continued to do that, it's an evolving science in it - It's an imperfect science still. But we now on all our core ranges do environmental product declarations, which include lifecycle assessments. And we're able to give not just the carbon content or the carbon store, of the pieces of furniture, but also all the other measures the other seven measures of environmental impact that are embodied within the work we do.

So it's a really fascinating things. And in order to be really transparent, and protect against a world that is flooded with greenwash, we really need metrics. And is only through lifecycle assessment and independent verification, that we can get reliable and proper metrics and people can, can see and trust the knowledge they've been given about the impact of what they're buying.

Laerke Sutcliffe

I think we also decided about I think it's five years ago, that we wanted to take it to the next level as Sean was saying, the fact that all products today are declaring themselves ‘sustainable’. So you know, where does that leave us, a firm who truly has been sustainable from the very beginning, before it was something cool?

Where if we wanted to keep leading the way in terms of taking it to the next levels, how did we best interact with the movement, so we decided to have third party verification to be able to put the hard facts on the table.

So in that process, we had to go back and analyze a little bit the materials that we were using, so glues, oil, and upholstery was our biggest challenge. And we then went into to a process of putting quite a bit of pressure on our supply chain, which I think is needed, you know, people, like ourselves and our friends in the industry required a lot of responsibility in terms of choosing the materials that we put out in the world.

So if we can put that pressure on the supply chain saying, guys, unless you can meet those criteria, so there was transparency. In our case, we wanted to have a declare label on the products, so unless the products that our supply chain provided could meet that the low VOC basically, they couldn't deal with it, we couldn't deal with them.

So we had to have some upfront meetings about either we work on this together, and we get to where we need to be at, or we have to go and look for other places to source our core materials. So I think that was a really interesting process.

And as Sean say, you know, we obviously come from a very good starting point because we work mainly in timber, but we still did have to do get our clues and our oils and, and PE and really in engage with the upholstery. And I don't know if it's worth it going into sort of like a deeper sort of description of how we did

Matt Morley

So the even the idea that your furniture could be unhealthy, that a flame retardant, a chemical process is going to off gas into your home or your office over the first six to 12 months, the idea that the adhesives might do the same and lower the quality of the indoor air in your space. And also you mentioned the filler but I saw that you'd found an ingenious solution by working with a UK company that I know from Devon who do the wonderful natural mattresses - so you went to a natural mattress company to find a solution to fix the issue around nasty foam filler as your upholstery?

Laerke Sutcliffe

That's right. And and I think as I said, you know, we started out by putting pressure on the existing supply chain and didn't actually get anywhere. For us, it was quite important to actually do the heavy work ourself, because you get into the grid of what it actually really takes to not just tick the box, but actually do the right things.

So we, in the research process, it became quite clear for us we had to be thinking, innovative, and as additive, and NaturalMat has been quite revolutionary in the way that they have providing their different materials to build up their mattresses. And so we reached out to them and said, You know, this is what we are trying to achieve. And actually, today, if we really want to do some massive changes, we believe we have to collaborate across industries. And be and think a little bit above, just sort of like the day to day, you know, and what we set out to do goal wise, our mission and so on.

We actually became really good friends with the guys running NaturalMat, and we had to persuade them that you know, guys, come on, let's work together. And let's try to, to do things in a way that is not necessarily the conventional way of doing things.

Benchmark Furniture

I do think that we're all going to make a lot more difference if we collaborate more. And if we, if we have as much openness and transparency about what we're doing. So we have a rule here, anybody can come and visit our workshops, you know, industry competent competitors, whatever, they can come and see what we do and how we do it. Because on our on our own, we're going to make very little change. But if we can help lead away and and larger and perhaps more influential businesses, financially influential businesses can can see that there's a way forward and follow suit, then, then we're going to be very happy to have shared that knowledge.

Laerke Sutcliffe

We do also on our website, we actually share our composition of how we managed to put together our post street at the end, because that was also quite a process of finding both comfort and, and sort of actually meeting the first fire retardant natural fire retardant within the build up of the structure. So we did put quite a lot of sort of testing and effort into getting there. And as shown saying, instead of sort of, you know, could putting a copyright and sort of being proud about it.

We actually say, guys, give us a call. This is how you do it, we show it on the website, and yeah, very open to share. And I think it's also important to mention that we you know, we have walked the walk and come a long way, we still have a lot to do, and we will keep walking. But we are never, never trying to look or come across as the expert in the industry, but more the sharing people that we hope you will follow. If that makes sense.

Matt Morley

Talk to us a bit about the OVO furniture collection because from outside it looks like it's encompassing a lot of your values and the principles behind the business in one - is it sort of the furthest you've gone so far in terms of delivering on that?

Benchmark Furniture

Yes, the OVO range was the first of our core ranges that we did for environmental product declarations on and it for me It embodies the very best of design and I think the design is the best of modern design. It's simple. It's tactile, it’s biophilic, you just feel good in its presence, you want to stroke it. It's non toxic. In its consistency in its materials, it has a measured embodied carbon declared on it. And in almost all cases, other than the leather upholstery pieces, it's, it gives us a sort of net carbon store or people even call it carbon negative, but we call it a net carbon store value.

I think it does embody the best of of what we do. But we've extended the environmental product declarations now to many more products. And we've had some external consultants write algorithms that enable us to do this in a simpler way, we still have to have the figures verified by third party peer reviewed, but it does enable it to be more streamlined. And it is a bit burdensome, and a lot of businesses just cannot see how they would ever do it. But the processes are becoming simpler.

Models are being built that will enable makers of anything really to do this, and it's just gonna be very valuable. I hope a time will come when we will base taxation of products, not on an arbitrary figure of the of the pecuniary value but on their carbon cost - being a much more real cost as we face You know, the climate situation we we face. So, I think that that it's really important the sharing of knowledge and the making it easier for businesses to to produce lifecycle assessments or environmental product declarations.

Matt Morley

There may not be government level legislation yet around targets for the carbon impact of furniture in a new workplace. Let's say if that workplace or the owner, the real estate developer signs up for a LEED certification process and indeed the well process there then, in a sense that provides that structure that then gives additional credits and effectively encourages the industry. And someone like myself was specifying which furniture should be put into these 12 floors of offices.

Were then out looking for brands, businesses, products, such as they have a collection that have that epd behind them, and they're then rewarded with credits on the on the overall project score. So I think there is a commercial angle to it, if anyone's still not convinced that it is the purely the right thing to do. When one is aligned with LEED or BREEM certification, one of these systems, there are literally points scored for purchasing products that have these EPDs. And that seems to be the best we have in terms of nudging the industry in the right direction.

You mentioned biophilic design, and it's typically referenced for entire spaces, and a lot of people think of effectively plants. But I'm big advocate for biophilic design being much more about things like texture, colours, patterns and natural fabrics.

Unusually though, you mentioned it in the context of your furniture. So from where you sit, how does this trend if we can call it that reflect a shift towards a more natural approach to interiors? How are your pieces talking that language of nature?

Benchmark Furniture

So our pieces of furniture do speak as a very natural piece because principally, they're made of wood and as human beings, our oldest and most trusted relationship with any material is with wood. It is the most in any survey done anywhere in the world at any time. Wood is the material that gets the greatest amount of trust and credibility from the buying public.

I just believe I know that we react very well. When we can see that something's made of wood and preferably have solid wood. The fact that we can touch it, the fact that we can feel the grain we can see the grain it just takes us into a natural world. There are all sorts of measures that that are starting to be done or on the the brains reaction in relation to to nature and there is some science We're starting to get some science that is actually able to pinpoint, specifically which parts of our brain react well.

But I'm also a great believer in instinct. And I regard instinct as being a little more than the sort of distillation of 1000s or hundreds of 1000s of years of experience in existence of the race. If our instinct is to accept and trust and feel good in the presence of material, then you're probably right. And we don't give enough credit to instinct we tend to look for, for sort of scientific explanations for everything, and yet we accept that instinct exists within the way a whale migrates or swallow returns to its nesting site, we accept that instinct exists, but in everything except human beings.

I think we should listen a little more to our instinct, and everybody feels better, closer to nature. And if that closer to nature means sitting at a wooden table and feeling a piece of wood, or sleeping in a wooden bed, or having a wooden floor, a wooden wall, then that's also beneficial.

Laerke Sutcliffe

I think, also more indirect, for instance, our new collection, our new fabric collection, has aspects of biophilic by the fact that it's created in in natural materials and without the need of any fire retardant treatment. So aspects like that, that, you know, if you keep if you're building up products are spaces with only materials this either, yeah, natural or not, in need of any toxicity for any treatment. That layers up, in my opinion, they biophilic design.

So I think but as you're saying that biophilic design is quite often misunderstood by you know, just at the very end of the project, you putting a few sort of plants, in plastic pots around the green wall, the green, green wall, you know, it sticks much deeper than that, then then then then in how you are creating a space in layers.

Matt Morley

I noticed one of your previous projects was the Maggie’s Center in Manchester, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Lily Jencks, the daughter of the late Maggie on one of my early projects and Lily, a landscape architect created a wonderful green gym space for us. And I when I saw that you'd also been involved on a Maggie center in Manchester, I just thought what a great one an obvious connection and so fitting.

So perhaps you could just describe a little bit the involvement there because again, I think there's a real connection with with biophilic design and creating a nurturing space and it's essentially a cancer care center. So a place where it's real mission, its purpose is to nourish and calm and relieve anxiety.

Benchmark Furniture

Yeah, I'm I'm a huge fan of the Maggie's charity and Charles Jencks his vision. After Maggie's work, it was Maggie's vision in her own lifetime, having suffered that, that sort of shock of being diagnosed with cancer, and you walk out of the oncology department in some big hospital, and where do you go? Where do you take that shock. And their vision was that you take it into a Maggie center, and that these centers should seek in every way to sort of calm and reassure and comfort you. And nature is in their view, and I would share it entirely the greatest comfort at that moment. And so all Maggie centers are built as much as possible in natural materials. They have gardens, they have a big kitchen table where you can give away which encourages a sense of community and sharing of your that moment and of of your diagnosis or treatment afterwards. And so we've actually been involved in a lot of Maggie's projects Manchester was was one of them, which was a foster and partners project. But we've done a lot of the Maggie centers and I think that sadly, I'm Charles Jencks has he's died there, but the the charity continues, and Garner's a lot of goodwill for very good work, but it is that central thing of putting nature at the heart of a building, whether it be through gardens, planting, natural materials, tactility shape form, and undoubtedly every Maggie's that I've ever been into Give a feeling of wellness sort of ironic when actually tend to be rather full of people who are unwell with cancer. But but the the physical environment is a very well environment.

Matt Morley

There's then also the topic of, of circularity and circular economy and durability and something that one can really sense with with your work is that no doubt due to impart to the vertical integration to the level of craftsmanship to the quality of the products and materials, something that's going to last.

And you've really committed to that with this idea of almost sort of a take back scheme at the end which connects with the idea of circular economy and I'm a big fan of this, I think pretty much everyone needs to get on board. But it seems to be a slow takeoff. How have you adopted that approach? And what have you learned so far from that?

Benchmark Furniture

So I think our stance on this started with with the concept of lifetime repair. What we make is inherently durable, because we operate with high levels of craftsmanship, and hopefully good design, where durability is built in and designed in. But the concept of lifetime repair. I think it was it was probably Patagonia and Yvon Chouinard, and in my awareness of the work that he'd done on it, I thought, well, that's all free.

So of course, we should offer lifetime repair, it's an easy thing to do. So that was the starting point. And then the circularity argument, as it's gained momentum over the last 10 years or so, really took us beyond that to what is a relatively new initiative for us of take back scheme, where anybody who owns our furniture, we do have geographic limitations, which are just for the purpose of the practicality of recovering and bringing it back.

But essentially, within this moment, we operate it within the UK, we can collect there for if it's no longer required, it is no longer relevant, useful. Or the or the circumstances of the owner have just changed. We can take it back, we can give it a value depending on the condition of it, which is then issued as a credit against more furniture that we can supply.

But then what we take back, we seek to either repair, refurbish, repurpose, reuse, or at worst recycle. And because it's all natural materials, they're recyclable. And so in order to, to offer that and do that, you have to think at the design stage and the making stage about well, how easy is it to repair, how easy to take it apart? when this comes back to us, you know, are we going to be able to take it apart until you start to think even when you're making it for the first time about how you're going to remake it or repurpose it or refurbish it.

There's nothing new I mean, you know, it's it's centuries old, the concept that that furniture should be able to reuse and repurpose it was you know, furniture used to be the one of the very high value items that any household owned. And so it had to be transportable, it had to be repairable and somehow we lost sight of that.

So we're only really seeking to reintroduce something that that has been around. But yes, it's it's an exciting, it's an exciting new avenue for us. And it also hopefully will bring a new audience to us because there will be this, this body of furniture that's available for for resale, refurbished furniture for resale. And that hopefully will bring us new customers as well. So we will I hope it's good business as well as good for the world.

Laerke Sutcliffe

But also as you say, it sort of starts already from the product development point of view. So we have a when we start new projects we just about to go into a new product development process this month. And when we start out a collaboration like that, we have a wheel that we sort of measuring all the or the starting process and all the way through really up against this wheel. And one of those is but if it's gonna last the life time, how do we then you know, how where do we start? So I think it's definitely starting from the very beginning that we are considering all of those different aspects which is ending up being there. They sort of finish it finished product,

Matt Morley

Effectively shouldering the responsibility for waste creation upfront in the production process in the design process because you know, you're taking ownership of that rather than designing and saying, Well, someone else can worry about what happens when it when it's finished when it when it's no longer needed.

Benchmark Furniture

Yes, but I'd also say we don't look upon it as perhaps waste creation, because what we take back is never waste. I mean, what we take back has opportunity, it has repurposing it, it has a resale, it has a lot of inherent embodied values still in it more than just the materials for recycling. So I'm the very, very last resort would be conversion into biomass fuel. But, but that would be the absolute last resort. So I really try to think that I would like to think that nothing we make ever ends up as waste, it just ends up as another kind of resource.

Matt Morley

Which is the takes us back to the wonderful circle rather than a linear, hopefully, hopefully, in some is admirable work. It's pretty great stuff. So you've obviously got retail collections, you also working with interior designers and architects, how are people connecting with you? Where are you present in the world?

Benchmark Furniture

People connect with us, I mean, I suppose our primary link is through the architectural community we've worked with, we're lucky enough to work with many of the world's biggest best and or most forward thinking architects. And so that is one of the major connections with the world.

We also deal with the furniture dealerships who have historically not been at the forefront of either either sustainable practice, you know, they'd be more interested in flogging a lot of furniture, then then what happens to it is lifestyle is the date its lifetime use. But actually that is changing. And pretty much all the dealerships are now having to engage in the argument.

And they have this whole, sustainable and circularity of health and wellbeing aspects now bigger, much higher in their customers buying profile. And so the dealerships are having to take that on board as well. That's another network that we that we operate through. And then I think just through the world of, of people who are interested in sustainability people like yourself, people like the planted, planted cities group that are looking at how we improve circularity, the way we view the products we consume.

Matt Morley

The good part there is that there's there's very little imagine sales process because the work speaks for itself. And there's a shared value system that one can just tap into and connect with because it's in one sense universal, although we wish it was slightly wider spread, of course, but for those of us who have bought into it and have adopted it as our worldview it's and we connect with see what you do, it's there is no conversion process required. It's just completely smooth. Well, that completely connects with how I see the world. And that's, I think, where the real value is.

Healthy Materials with Matter of Stuff

Materials for a healthy interior with Matter of Stuff in London, UK

Green & Healthy Places podcast episode 032

Wellbeing & sustainability in real estate & hospitality

Welcome to Episode 032 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast, in which we explore the worlds of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and hospitality. I'm your host, Matt Morley, wellbeing champion - Founder of BIOFILICO healthy buildings and BIOFIT wellness concepts.

This episode, I'm back in London, UK talking to the two Italian founders of Matter Of Stuff - a furniture procurement consultancy that offers bespoke manufacturing via a network of craftsmen as well as research and development of new materials and manufacturing processes.

sustainable interior materials

My conversation with Simona and Sofia focuses on the sustainable material side of their offer. It is worth noting that their range goes far beyond that inspired, at least in part by their links to artisans throughout their home country.

Here though, we're digging into the importance of choosing locally produced building materials, considering a materials entire lifecycle, and a circular economy approach to repurposing building waste.

In terms of specific materials, we cover things like sustainable ceramics, clay plaster, live mycelium, recycled glass, biodegradable cork walls, and an ingenious sea stone product made of discarded seashells from the seafood industry.

All of this is really just a reflection of the wealth of knowledge at the fingertips that these two young ladies have. And they're now setting their sights on construction materials in addition to interior surface materials, so expect to hear plenty more from them over the next year or so.

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, so I'm Simona. And we're both architects, we set up Matter Of Stuff seven years ago, wow. Time flies, but we came from an architectural background working in offices in London, I had a big studio for myself. And we find a gap in between the manufacturing industry and what is the the actual scenes of the architectural industry. So we are defining ourself as a consultancy for both materials and procurement of furniture manufacturing. We are actually trying to fill the gap in between architects, interior designers, and the manufacturing world.

Healthy interior materials for architects

So are you finding that generally, is it perhaps that architects are focusing on on the big picture, and they perhaps have their regular materials that they go to materials that it's easy for them to specify? And in a sense, you're, you're trying to propose new ideas?

Matter Of Stuff

“Busy architects may not have the luxury of time to research deeply new products and materials constantly. This topic has become very broad and their job has been pushed into larger more complex projects, so we help them navigate the world of materials and sustainability. ”

— Matter of Stuff

Craftmanship and sustainable materials in offices

So how do you see the hand crafted in relation to say industrial production? How do you see the relationship between the two because there's the sort of the imperfections on the one side, that kind of Wabi Sabi thing. Then in some contexts, and you mentioned offices - they are typically prefer almost an industrial approach to the furniture and the finishes. So how do you balance those two?

Matter Of Stuff

We wrote a manifesto about perfection, debunking the myth of imperfection, really, because we believe that in crafts as opposed to industrial production, imperfection is a symbol of craft ands add value, there are two way of manufacturing items one is producing at a large scale in a line.

What we value is the handcrafted. And so often, like small scale businesses, which are very dedicated to really high quality, however, there is a there is a little thing about the the mentality, the making by hand that goes and add a little detail, and every item makes every item you need. And that's what we value most.

Carbon footprint for furniture

How do you manage your own carbon footprint for the furniture projects that you're involved in?

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, so for basically for every piece of furniture that we sell, we deal with, there is a little code a little number that assigns a carbon footprint of every object and when we add up in a schedule all those numbers then we come up with a total quantity of carbon footprint emitted and then we try to offset it by partnering up with the Tree For Life - a charity set up in Scotland, the first place on earth to declare a climate emergency actually.

“I think of carbon offsets as the last resort for companies trying to make a difference; everybody should do it if possible but getting to the root of the problem requires researching materials that can transform the building and construction industry, such as recycled materials, mycelium and so on. ”

— matter of stuff

There are there are many ways potentially to influence the market to change and one is triggering thoughts and reflection and topics of furniture to interior design to the actual construction. Like we can do bricks in virgin material or we can break down an existing building and rebuild it from the materials that are actually used in the demolition process.

We also need to start thinking about localizing production. So bringing manufacturing closer to the construction site. What I mean by this is, for example, we work with recycled plastic - a super interesting concept and idea. However, if it is shipped from Italy, let's say to Los Angeles in California, then it doesn't really become sustainable.

A Life Cycle Analysis of Materials

So on one level, we have recycled materials but we also have to think about where that material is produced and the distance that it travels to get to the site.

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, and the final thing that you need to add to that is also the life cycle of our materials. So once you finish the project, you're not done at all, you have all these new life of materials that need to be repurposed from the building that you have completed. And as that is long life cycle.

So it is about adding a third element to sustainability thought, which is, how can I then reuse this material that I've used in my project in another project, and so on creating a circular process of reusing all your waste, because at the end of the day, we don't have only a problem of resources, we only have a problem as a massive amount of waste we are generating. So by kind of shifting the thoughts on these three topics, you can really make the massive differences.

healthy materials - ceramics

If we then go one level deeper and start looking at some of the materials… let’s start with ceramics, you've got some really interesting ceramic tiles, including some that have industrial waste made of iron and manganese and metal? How do you communicate those to a potential client in terms of why you would use certain types of ceramics over others?

Matter Of Stuff

Ceramic is a very exciting material. I think, because it's been used for centuries, we have so much knowledge gathered around it. And really, I think what we have tried to convey in our selection of ceramics is mainly How can we do it in a more sustainable way so that the impact of an oven at 1200 degrees doesn't become a problem in terms of carbon emissions.

We actually selected mainly companies and independents that are trying to use ceramic in an interesting way. So the first thing is, we don't have our range or set of ceramic tiles, we only make them bespoke to the needs of a client. But we are producing only on demand, which is a massive shift to how ceramic is conceived.

This means we don't create waste because we obviously don't produce more than what is demanded. We only turn on the oven when it's necessary, which is another point. And then I think there is a really interesting thing because ceramic is made out of iron sand sort of glazing that it's mostly having chemical reaction in the oven.

And by actually trying to recycle metal waste we are regenerating those materials that are polluting the environment into a product that can have beautiful color as a normal glazing by reusing something that would be otherwise poisoning landfills. We try to really guide our client and architect to understand what they're purchasing and only purchasing what is necessary.

Non-toxic materials for improved air quality

Okay, so the recycled content is the pigment in the glaze on top of the tile that contains these recycled components but you also mentioned there's some toxic elements potentially in other types of ceramic tiles? The ceramic tile unglazed is a healthy material but it is the glaze we have to careful of is that it?

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, so I mean, in general, when you create tiles, you are having a body of clay that needs to be skipped, let's call it and you put it into the oven, and you fire it, and this is unglazed. And then we use glass and metal particles and pigments to create the beautiful coloring of the surface of the time.

Obviously, there are chemicals in that process that are not natural, that could actually be poisoning. And obviously we try to avoid those and try to only use things that are, you know, potentially natural source of coloring. Obviously, by using some of these iron and manganese and other metals that were left in the, in the landfills, we are offsetting the pollution that they will generate and instead creating a beautiful coloured glaze.

the healing power of clay

Do you see that as almost part of one healthy material family then as you also supply clay plasters and paints, all offering a connection to one of our most ancient building materials.

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, clay and earth is one of the oldest material humans have used. I think the main difference with clay plaster and paints is that you're actually using the clay unfired so you're not turning on an oven, you are mixing it with different types of pigments or silica, and things that can create really beautiful coloring, and then you're just plastering walls with it.

What is also quite important is that clay has incredible properties is actually a healing material. We use it, you know, as a face mask, we use it as well to cure our aching joints when they are a bit stiff. So clay has this really strong natural power of healing. And by using it as a natural product on your walls, you're creating a surface that is hypoallergenic, but has also ability to regulate humidity inside a room, which is something that is very important for the health of of, you know, of as human in cylinder.

materials that are both green and healthy

You're describing these materials both in terms of people and planet, both the healthy and the environmentally friendly. So balancing the two in terms of the impact the material has on the planet, but also on the potentially positive impact that can have on on the health of the people spending time in that space. What about mycelium in that sense, it is a new material that's suddenly getting talked about so much. What is its potential?

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, I mean, it's biophilic Design, I mean, it comes, there's something interesting in designing with a living material, right? We can plan the outcome and we can kind of control it in a way that it comes to a desired form or shape or certain performances.

What's great about mycelium is that it's a fungus, and it grows by eating some kind of organic matter. And then what we can do, we can stop the growth of the material once it's rich, the shape and the performances that we want. And we can kind of see it in a way that it stops growing and it stops it starts actually performing.

But after its lifecycle as a building material, for example, if an office needs to be taken down in 10 years time, then the acoustic panel that is composed of mycelium can be taken out of the wall and thrown in compost and actually it biodegrade with nature.

I think that's something completely beautiful and and it's new Of course it's there's so much of this research that it's has been gone through I think as a consequence of the Greta Thunberg movement you know a couple of years ago people are getting a lot more like aware and I think governments are investing a lot more into funding and subsidizing also research and design and new manufacturing processes that are you know, innovative and have you know, something something new to give to to kind of the construction industry I think that's great and it's it's the only way forward in a way

opportunities for recycled glass in wellbeing interiors

You also have a range of glass products and recycled glass in particular such as recycled glass panels made in the UK 100%. So it's taking the sort of the local box if you had a local project in in London or the UK, right?

Matter Of Stuff

So recycled glass, it's an amazing opportunity for all of us because glass, again, is one of the oldest material humans work with. Most of our recycled glass are taking shape into a pixel that could be repeated, either creating chandeliers or creating new wall systems with other materials, as well as the recycled glass which becomes actually an incredible tool to control acoustic performances into a room.

So by changing completely the composition, this creates material that is almost like a pumice stone type of thing. So it's very light, very porous, and can actually trap Sound waves inside in a very special way. So we simply use glass as a new material. But in a way, we can recycle it infinitely because it's only about you know, melting again the glass and so to keep on adding on it.

Also what is quite interesting about being very local is that you use the glass, the type of glass you have very close to you. So you control the quality of the glass and the colors. And therefore you can start creating patterns and so the composition that you know, are controllable and predictable.

We have also created recycled glass reception desk, or even tables, which is quite it's quite interesting and exciting, but we mostly work with designers who are private client they want to are interested in the material and then we come up with a beautiful design for it.

Cork walls as a sustainable design feature

Okay, so we have a couple of alternative options for acoustic panels. With the mycelium and the recycled glass. The recycled glass can also be almost kind of like decorative panels, but in the mycelium, I noticed can also be a type of floor tile. Talking about the walls I noticed you've also recently started working with Portuguese cork wool supplier, corks that some of the finishes there and that the designs that they have are really amazing. It's not what you would expect from a piece of cork, right?

Matter Of Stuff

Well, I mean, I think the main purpose of design is to innovate and make a material look new and interesting. So what Gencork has developed with cork is I think the ultimate design plus onto a material that has been seen and kind of used a lot.

So it's quite interesting to work with a Portuguese company because with cork because they are the biggest, you know, biggest premier production of cork in all Europe. And the trees are protected so they can only aravis cork in specific way and they need to ask permission to the government to actually you know, pick up the bark and produce it.

So it's very controlled process. And this is because they don't want to arm ever the plant. Also, by using cork we are using something that is completely renewable because it's only the skin The auditory, and therefore it can be constantly growth.

So it's harvest every normally six years, leaving the tree the time to regenerate. Expanded cork is produced differently from normal cork, we use high steam, and these makes the cork pop like popcorn and expand. And he kind of binds the material together with the rising of the trees instead of using a lot of other products or glue or epoxy resins.

So this means again, our cork panels are 100%, biodegradable and organic and they could be re cycled in a new pond. And I feel cork is like us for insulation of solids and many other purposes, but has never been pushed into a beautiful material that can be actually a facade or an interior cladding.

So the main purpose of this panel is generating a new aesthetic, a new three dimensional surface. And almost they can be carved as as a piece of marble really. So not only becoming a wall, but they could potentially be used even to create bespoke furniture or, or reception desk or, you know, seamless moving from a floor to a wall to a ceiling panel, which is quite exciting. I think for designers out there.

sustainable materials made from seashell waste

And finally, then I wanted to ask you about the recycled system to read so that you have because it just seems to have this beautiful story about the tons and tons of discarded seashells is that from the from the from the from the seafood industry?

Matter Of Stuff

Yes, we basically it's a project developed by two designers studied in London, it's a very exciting project where they actually started looking at how the seafood industry is kind of, you know, dumping a lot of these really beautiful material, because it's actually calcium carbonate. And we normally feed these into our production by, you know, kind of like seeking it.

While we are done throwing it away and sort of creating a lot of waste. So by reusing it and creating a composite that is kind of natural, they are generating a new type of concrete, they were actually asking a point to try and make the structural to really replace concrete entirely.

And it's quite interesting how much attic theory is behind this product, because the designer actually don't want this because as soon as you start trying to give more performance in terms of strength, they will have to add heat to the to the production.

And these would take away these completely non toxic completely like low carbon emission material, which I find very interesting because in a way, all our work revolves around one single tote, which is how can we make these material cheap enough and sustainable enough to replace technical materials that we are using.

So if we are able to make mycelium are really strong compared competitor to polyrattan, for example, or to or to a really terrible acoustic panel made out of synthetic fibers, we are really shifting the industry and we are not anymore forcing people to say oh, I need to spend so much more money to use these really sustainable material that is then maybe not behaving as I want.

We the real change and real shift into the industry could happen only if we make this product really permeable and easy to use. So ultimately, I think all our work revolves around trying to keep fanatic around what what is material do and try and really to push them to behave in a way that can replace those terrible materials that we are working with now.

And I mean, one thing that I think it's important to ensure we have only talked about surface material, which are only probably 10 or 15% of what is used in the industry. But we are working a lot on the vaccines to try and also scout for those materials that could really replace the larger quantity.

So how can we do an MDF that is more sustainable? Or it's completely recyclable? Or how can we replace entirely bricks with a new concept that doesn't allow doesn't require so much firing? So I think it's an interesting open quest, you know, and we all need to sort of exchange information and and knowledge and so that's why I think it's lovely what you're doing with this podcast, like trying to engage people to discover each other and hopefully, you know, this can lead to, to more knowledge shared among people in industry.

Healthy materials advisory

Are you advising construction companies? Are you collaborating with architects? How perhaps the range of different clients if you could describe those and how you're delivering your services effectively?

Matter Of Stuff

Yeah, so we, we work with both architects, interior designers, and of course, artists interior designer at the change maker, the are the main specifiers. And we've worked with contractors before, we've worked with directly with co-working spaces that have different locations in in London, supplying furniture.

And of course, there's a huge level of research that goes through and, for example, for furniture as well, like we've recently introduced a way to browse furniture on our website by sustainable properties, say let's furniture have, you know, certified wood or if they're made out of recycled material, if they are recyclable.

And that's, that's all research that we do. And it's kind of a service of the people that, you know, we work with, in a way. We believe in kind of free content, kind of sharing as much as possible.

Of course, London is quite a wild industry, but we're quite generous with our research. And, and yeah, so it's a we're open to new collaboration, we're open to private clients, as well as, you know, construction companies. And we welcome all kind of enquiries.

https://www.matterofstuff.com/

multi-sensory wellbeing interiors

How to use light, sound, scent and texture in multisensory Biophilic design for wellbeing benefits

What is wellbeing interior design? 

Wellbeing interiors are simply indoor spaces that have been maximized for human health and wellness. These may or may not include consideration for sustainability as the focus here is primarily on People rather than Planet. The role of human senses is crucial in this context, as a fundamentally multisensory approach to design can enhance the overall well-being of occupants by considering a broader spectrum of human perception, including light, air, sound, and materials selection. Multisensory design is essential in creating meaningful experiences that engage users’ senses, impacting mood, behavior, and well-being.

It’s a subtle distinction and by no means one that suggests mutually exclusive concepts, in fact we would argue that the best examples manage to marry both, bridging both worlds, respecting the environment whilst also promoting enhanced health for occupants of the space.

Wellbeing design considers light, air, sound and materials selection. This is often delivered by a Wellbeing Champion either independently or as a consultant on a wider project team.

What is biophilic design?

Biophilic design combines elements of nature, health and sustainability in interiors and architecture.

Far more than just landscaping, in its finest examples, it maintains a strong visual connection between indoor and outdoor worlds through the careful selection of colours, materials, patterns, shapes and, yes, both living plants and non-living representations of nature.

Our ‘tools’ in this sense include indoor planters and mini gardens, living walls, flooring, wall decor, acoustic panels, natural artworks, furniture fabrics, even eco cleaning policies, aromatherapy, soundscapes.

Natural light in healthy indoor environments

Lighting in a home office environment is important not just for ensuring a respectable image on a Zoom call but also for its role on our mental wellbeing. Natural light is crucial for maintaining consistent circadian rhythms, promoting physical and mental health, and contributing to a healthy multisensory workspace. Digital design plays a significant role in creating multisensory workspaces that incorporate non-visual sensory aspects, such as smell, taste, and touch, to enhance overall perception and experience. Considering a broader spectrum of sensory perceptions, it may not be the first thing we think of in relation to Biophilic design and healthy indoor environments but it is a valuable component in any wellbeing interiors project.

In a workplace wellness strategy, both for home and commercial spaces, daylight exposure is key for well-being.

First up, it’s always a good idea to get a few minutes of direct natural sunlight within the first 30 minutes or so of waking in order to help regulate your circadian rhythm - use a smart light system that recreates that same spectrum of colour for you indoors during the winter months, these lights can also be used to replicate sunlight as your alarm clock all year round, assuming dogs, cats and kids do not get there first!

Similarly, when working from home place your desk set-up near a window to give you as much natural daylight during your work day as possible. When you need supplemental lighting, again a smart light system will allow you to program the colour frequency from blue-white in the morning to amber in the evening, easing you into the day and winding you down steadily at night.

In the evenings one should avoid exposure to intense sources of blue-white light. Halogen ceiling lights will struggle to create the right atmosphere mornings and evenings above all, so you’ll want to switch to a combination of standing lamps and task lighting (e.g. desk lamp) to give more flexibility.

Get this wrong and it can severely affect quality of sleep - we may even be able to fall asleep as usual but there will be less REM sleep and therefore less mental recuperation taking place during the night. Those with sleep monitors on their wrists or fingers should be able to produce their own data to verify this for themselves.

Clearly all screens, be they from a TV, computer or smartphone are possible sources of this same sleep-disrupting light, so ensure there is a program such as f.lux on your computer or just the TV brightness later in the evening - better yet allow yourself a minimum of one hour of screen-free time before bed.

In a family or work scenario where compromises need to be made for whatever reason, individually electing to wear a pair of amber-lensed glasses in the evenings does the same job. Again, it’s worth testing this out and monitoring your sleep quality if it is of interest.

Acoustics in wellbeing interiors

A healthy building needs to address acoustics and other sensory features in order to create a healthy indoor environment that does not promote stress, while aiding in concentration and, in a residential context, ensures high quality sleep at night.

Incorporating sensory integration into the design process is crucial for creating a healthy indoor environment, as it considers the impact of various senses on inhabitants and promotes well-being through a multisensory approach.

Sound insulating materials are often integrated into or under flooring tiles, dry wall insulation, decorative wall panels, room dividers, planters, furniture and even wall paint.

Distracting noises in large, open-plan office spaces can have a direct impact on worker wellbeing and leave staff struggling to find a quiet corner in which to do deep work alone.

Equally, a small room with no soft furnishings in, such as a second bedroom converted into a home office, will require either carpet or a rug, furniture and fabrics - basically anything soft to help stop the sound reverberating around the room.

Once an acoustic plan has established an agreeable baseline of background noise, then we can apply acoustic Biophilic design by bringing in subtle nature sounds or other forms of white noise to mask noise from HVAC systems and elevator shafts. This may not be appropriate everywhere but can, for example, be applied in specific areas such as a reception or waiting area, or canteen.

Sounds of trickling water could be a fountain outside, allowing nature sounds from outside to come indoors, acoustic world music, ethnic, or traditional music from around the world especially drumming, those are all evolutionary aligned soundtracks that are likely to promote focus and drive without distracting.

Delos in the US, the company behind the WELL Certification for healthy buildings, amongst other things, recently launched a biophilic sounds and mindfulness app called MindBreaks that offers high-quality 3D audio to help you “Escape, Energize, Rest, Meditate, Focus and Inspire”.

Acoustic sound booths such as these ones we sourced for the HERO food group’s corporate offices in Switzerland can also be integrated into a Biophilia plan by selecting suitable colours for the acoustic fabrics inside, options for models with wood (or veneer) panelling, placing plants around the booths and generally ensuring they integrate smoothly into the overall workplace design.

Finally, music with lyrics can be distracting at least in a language that we understand and there is nothing worse in a workplace context than a playlist that prevents us from doing our best work each day but as a rule, acoustic, traditional and ethnic sounds are going to be especially good at filling the void in a workspace context without demanding too much of your mental focus and attention.

Whether that is a realistic game plan for 8-10 hours a day or not is up to you and your colleagues to decide, perhaps just as we move around a workplace for different tasks, having specific playlists (or indeed a ‘no music’ policy) that match those tasks, might be a sensible solution?

Scent in Biophilic design interiors

So, we mentioned the idea of forest bathing a corollary of Biophilic design in interiors. Forest phytoncides are a particular airborne substance given off by certain species of trees that has been shown in South East Korea to boost the human immune system too.

When combined with what we know about the mental health benefits of spending time in nature, it’s clear that aromatherapy has a role to play in a multi-sensory Biophilic design strategy. This strategy emphasizes the importance of sensory experience, incorporating all five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and even taste to create innovative and memorable environments. Adding layer upon layer of nature-inspired detail in a Biophilic interior concept can significantly enhance the sensory experience.

Invest in a high-quality pine or cypress oil for your home aromatherapy diffuser, perhaps combined with rosemary and peppermint to capture some of the same health benefits of spending time outside in a forest.

Think especially of how this could be done in a home office environment, for example, where a little Biophilic design can go a long way in creating a wellbeing interior geared for productivity and calm. The impact of sound in the workplace environment should also be considered, addressing both its positive and negative effects.

Equally, citrus oils such as bergamot and lemon are especially good for focus, followed by lavender later in the evening to help you wind down when the workday is done.

Texture in healthy interiors for sensory experience

Last but not least, let’s not forget the role of texture and sensory qualities in wellbeing interiors, as designing for all the senses with a carefully chosen natural fabric or finish with just the right amount of tactility can add an additional layer of nature-connectedness to a Biophilic design.

Man-made materials tend to be impossibly perfect compared to nature, so integrating natural materials such as wool, cork, wood and cotton in carefully selected places can invite a tactile interaction with the interiors. Plastic may be cheap and easy to clean but, at least from a Biophilic design perspective, it will never be able to compete with real wood or bamboo say.

We might imagine a decorative cork wall in an office reception for example such as those by Gencork or a textured jute rug by Nanimarquina in a home office inviting the user to spend time barefoot during the day.

Not all of the strategies need to be combined in every wellbeing interior but there is magic in integrating more than one of them as a way to add interest and intrigue…

how to create a healthy indoor environment — biofilico wellness interiors

Biophilic Design Display at Can Ikigai, Barcelona by Biofilico

Describe Your Work in the Healthy Buildings and Workplace Wellness Space

I take a nature-oriented approach to health and wellbeing, focusing on the real estate and hospitality sectors, including offices, residences, gyms, and hotels, to create healthy indoor environments.

Biofilico offers creative design, interior consulting, and building certification services. We design wellbeing interiors ourselves or collaborate with architects, engineers, and project management as external advisors with specific briefs.

In every project, our aim is to enhance an interior’s mental and physical health by ensuring good indoor environment quality. Energy efficiency measures are integrated into our designs to ensure good indoor air quality and occupant health. Offices, homes, and hotels are now key areas of focus. Additionally, I work at a strategic level, helping real estate developers align their property developments with ESG principles.

Biofit, on the other hand, focuses specifically on wellness concepts, gym design, and wellbeing programs for hotels and workplaces.

Both businesses are intricately related to the spaces we spend our time in, aiming to ensure buildings are aligned with our health and the planet's wellbeing.

What is a ‘Sick Building’ Compared to a Healthy Building?

A sick building can manifest in various ways, including headaches, concentration problems, low energy levels, reduced cognitive function, high numbers of staff sick days, and other health problems.

In contrast, a healthy building that integrates wellbeing interior design and follows a global standard, such as the WELL Certification, promotes occupant mental and physical health. This involves construction or refurbishment, interior fit-out, and facilities management policies once the building is in use.

These wellbeing design principles can be applied both in the workplace and at home, contributing to a healthier indoor environment.

What is Biophilic Design?

Biophilic design bridges sustainability and human wellbeing in real estate and interiors. It involves nature-inspired design that brings the outside world in, providing positive benefits for both people and the planet.

Green building strategies focus on a building’s environmental impact, while healthy building strategies prioritize the wellbeing of its occupants. Biophilic design is multisensory, combining aesthetics with touch, smell, and sound, often involving natural patterns, textures, circadian lighting, and many plants.

Biophilic design can vary from clean, precise lines to neutral, calming tones and organic materials, showing its versatility. This design approach can enhance the indoor environmental quality, reducing the negative effects of poor indoor air quality.

How Does Biophilic Design Connect with Healthy Buildings?

Biophilic design is a key element of healthy buildings, which has gained prominence due to the increased time we spend indoors. The wellbeing of the workforce and its relation to the physical work environment is now more relevant than ever. This connection helps reduce health risks and improve occupant comfort.

What are the Health Benefits of Biophilic Design?

Biophilic design can increase productivity and concentration levels in workspaces and speed up patient recovery times. It’s gaining interest in sectors like senior living, as it helps in reducing health conditions such as heart disease and lung cancer.

Certain countries have doctors prescribing time in nature for stressed professionals. Biophilic design aims to capture the calming, energizing effects of nature in an indoor environment, benefiting us even as urbanization cuts us off from natural spaces.

Studies show that biophilic elements in hotel lobbies and office reception areas extend lingering time, making people feel comfortable and at ease. This is particularly important in urban areas where fresh air supply and outdoor air pollution are major concerns.

What Research Studies Prove the Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace?

In 2017, Biofilico was commissioned by EcoWorld Ballymore to create a Vitamin Nature recharge room in London’s Canary Wharf. This greenhouse space, full of air-purifying plants, natural light, and circadian lighting, provided a digital detox zone for 108 local workers.

The study showed significant improvements: 74% felt an improvement in mood, 87% felt less stressed, 83% felt more productive, and 87% felt more creative. These findings highlight the importance of creating healthy indoor environments that support human health and productivity.

What is Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)?

Improving indoor air quality (IAQ) is crucial at home and work. Strategies include natural ventilation, air-purifying plants, and enhanced air conditioning filters like MERV13 for dust particles and carbon filters for VOCs. These strategies help mitigate the effects of indoor air pollution and airborne pollutants.

Commercial-grade air quality monitors provide detailed, real-time data, essential for any healthy building certification system like WELL.

How Does a Healthy Building Improve Air Quality?

Natural ventilation strategies require at least two windows open to create a passage of air from one part of the space to another. This gentle airflow connects you with the outside world in a multisensory way, preventing drowsiness and clearing out dust particles from the indoor air.

We can also work with plants to improve indoor air. A famous NASA study identified several plants that improve air quality, such as Spider plants, Chinese Evergreen, Boston ferns, Bamboo Palm, and ZZ plants. These plants remove CO2 by day and give off Oxygen at night, making them ideal for indoor use, including in bedrooms.

For workplace environments, facilities management or HR teams can request enhanced air conditioning filter systems. Carbon filters are good for VOCs, and MERV13 filters are effective for dust particles. This helps in maintaining a healthy indoor air quality and reducing airborne particles.

Monitoring air quality is essential when purifying the air in a healthy building. Commercial-grade air quality monitors are easy to install and are an essential piece of any healthy building certification system like WELL. These monitors provide real-time data that can be displayed to building occupants, enhancing transparency and awareness.

What are Healthy Materials in an Interior Affecting Indoor Air Quality?

Materials and finishes can release hazardous chemicals into the air. Preventing these chemicals is fundamental to ensuring a healthy indoor environment.

Choose natural materials like linen, cotton, jute, wood, wool, leather, bamboo, cork, clay, and bio-materials. Avoid plastics, synthetics, epoxies, and resins. Ensure material transparency by asking for ingredient lists and looking for third-party certifications like Cradle to Cradle.

By selecting healthy and non-toxic materials as part of an interior fit-out, we can limit the exposure occupants have to harmful chemicals, reducing health risks. Material transparency is key to ensuring a healthy indoor environment.

Q&A with a Biophilic Design Consultant: Healthy Building and Wellness Interiors — Biofilico

How did you enter the field of wellbeing interiors, healthy buildings and biophilic design?

Biofilico’s Founder, Matt Morley at the creative workspace ‘Montoya’ in Barcelona, Spain

Biofilico’s Founder, Matt Morley at the creative workspace ‘Montoya’ in Barcelona, Spain

I spent 10 years with a mixed-use real estate developer and operator in what eventually became a Creative Director role delivering new business concepts. I’d work with the construction and development teams, as well as finance, marketing and operations, taking a sports bar, coworking space, business club, beach club or concept store from idea to reality.

It was an amazing learning experience for what would come later - effectively doing a similar thing but a boutique consultancy business and focusing specifically on green and healthy spaces, incorporating biophilic design principles.

Where did your interest in health, fitness, and mental health come from?

So in parallel with that 10-year process I’ve just describe my 7-10 hours per week of training starting to take on ever more importance in my life, especially as I was doing so much of it outdoors, immersed in nature, with minimal equipment.

I was also experimenting with standing desks, going barefoot, a low-carb Paleo diet and bringing the outside world in to my office and home. I aimed to bring nature into my living and working spaces to enhance wellbeing and productivity. Incorporating these elements into my living and working spaces helped to reduce stress and improve overall wellbeing. In other words, my life became a testing ground for these new ideas around workplace wellbeing, ancestral health and wellbeing interiors.

Do you remember the exact moment you first discovered biophilic design?

It was a very organic, intuitive process for me. This is so important to reiterate as a biophilic design expert - I got there by myself, using my own instinct and listening to my body, testing things out on myself and eventually coming to the conclusion that most indoor spaces devoid of the natural world were simply not happy, uplifting places for me to be. I realized that integrating biophilic principles, such as the use of natural elements and patterns, was essential to creating environments that promote wellbeing and productivity.

At that point, I knew I had to quit my job and make my own rules from then on. I needed to go to an extreme to understand what was out there, what was possible and what my body could feel if I went all-in on this approach for a while. I don’t think my then-girlfriend knew what on earth was going on by that point!

In other words, biophilic design was not something I studied, it was as if it came from inside of me first and all I had to do was recognize what was happening.

Of course, it helped to be immersed in real estate and interiors for my work at the same time, that was the magic mix that made it possible to become a wellbeing champion and biophilic design consultant later on.

What experts influenced you on the path to becoming a biophilic design consultant for real estate and hospitality?

Over time I worked out that there was a whole school of thought largely led by the US around how to actually do what I was talking about in a clear, structured way. Terrapin’s 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design and Stephen Kellert’s The Practice of Biophilic Design were fundamental reference points. Their work highlights the proven benefits of biophilic design in promoting wellbeing, productivity, and creativity in living and working spaces.

How did you become a consultant in healthy interiors and biophilic design?

I set up my first company, Biofit, back in 2015 specializing in creating sustainable gyms and wellness concepts through biophilic interior design. Over time that evolved into a fitness advisory business working with hotel groups and corporates around Europe to create innovative wellness concepts, gym facilities and fitness programs. This work also emphasized the importance of the built environment in promoting overall wellbeing.

Originally I thought I was setting up my own natural fitness studio in London but several successful pivots led me to where I am today!

In 2018 I set-up my second business, Biofilico focusing on a wider market of wellbeing interiors and healthy building services. This is much more closely aligned with the work I was doing for the mixed-use developer / operator before becoming an entrepreneur.

What advice would you give to someone hoping to become a biophilic designer or wellbeing interiors expert?

My path is not the only path clearly, other people may be coming from an engineering background, architecture or sustainability but to do this you really need to have a solid understanding of real estate, construction and how buildings are made.

Otherwise you’re going to struggle to put yourself in the shoes of your clients, to understand what their objectives are and how best to help them get there.

If you intend to be an independent consultant in biophilic design, wellbeing interiors, or indeed healthy buildings, you’ll need some certifications to show for it to, so studying for at least one if not several certification systems is a really good place to start. Certifications like WELL, LEED, and Living Future are essential for demonstrating expertise in biophilic design. Interior designers play a crucial role in integrating biophilic design concepts into interior spaces, significantly impacting mental health.

Additionally, biophilic design consultants often work alongside architects, engineers, lighting designers, acoustics consultants, and client representatives, emphasizing the collaborative nature of these projects.

Biophilic design research study for The Wardian - an EcoWorld Ballymore residential development in London’s Canary Wharf

What prompted you to do your own research studies into biophilic design and natural elements in London?

We were commissioned by a real estate developer called EcoWorld Ballymore to take over a space of theirs by the river in Canary Wharf, London’s business district for a 4-week residency.

We created a mini biophilic workspace in small glass building, turning it into a creative meeting room right by the water full of air-purifying plants to improve indoor air quality. We also integrated natural elements such as natural light, plants, and water to enhance the connection between the built and natural environments, creating a healthier built environment. A team from the University of Essex then created a scientific research questionnaire for us as a ‘before and after’ questionnaire for office workers during their visit to our ‘recharge room’ full of Vitamin Nature. (see the full report here)

In total 108 people spent about an hour in that biophilic green space designed for mental wellbeing, and we saw very positive results for key indicators such as productivity, creativity, nature-connectedness, stress and anxiety levels, even concentration.

So, a ‘recharge room’ or office ‘quiet space’ can become especially interesting when we layer in biophilic design as a way to give purpose and meaning to for example an unused office.

Maybe there is room for a little yoga and stretching in there too, or maybe not but let’s be clear - mental health in the workplace has never been more important than it is today.

This type of nurturing space in an office environment may seem a mismatch but in fact it can be a tangible help for HR departments looking to recruit and retain top talent by ensuring they have a happy and healthy workforce.

Does Green Design in Video Games Have a Biophilic Effect?

Biophilic design has to do with the physical furnishing and arrangement of indoor spaces.

As we’ve noted in the past however, the biophilic design concept is ultimately about bringing the outdoors in to “re-establish our connection to nature” even when we’re stuck in enclosed environments.

It’s an idea that some think of as being “good for the soul,” as well as one that’s increasingly significant in its ability to help us recognize what we’re losing as climate change progresses.

When we think about this broader definition of biophilic design though, it’s interesting to consider how the concept might apply beyond the setup of physical spaces.

In this post we’re going to explore specifically whether or not biophilic concepts are beginning to play a role in video games. Because whether intentionally or not, the infusion of natural environments into popular games appears to be something of a growing trend.

Mainstream Video Games

For almost as long as mainstream video games have existed, there have been plenty that have made good use of outdoor settings. That much is a given.

With improvement in game design however, these settings have grown increasingly sophisticated and beautiful — to the point that some find them (even subconsciously) almost therapeutic.

Last year, Polygon published a terrific write-up on “games that feel like going outside,” highlighting examples like The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, Eastshade, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, and even Red Dead Redemption 2.

The outdoor environments in these games are lush, gorgeous, and frankly reminiscent of an older and less impacted world — or at the very least of remote environments most of us don’t interact with very often.

As exciting as the accompanying gameplay can be, these games are exciting just to live in.

Casino Games

Casino gaming through online platforms and mobile apps has grown more popular in the last decade, and it’s largely because the games are relying more on visual quality and a sense of setting.

This is particularly true in the arcade slots that have come to define the category in large part, and many of them have immersive, nature-based atmospheres that make them surprisingly soothing.

It’s a difficult category of games to explore in some respects simply because there are so many developers and platforms to sift through.

For a sense of some of the natural atmospheres we’re referring to though, the broad selection of slots on Gala Spins provides a number of relevant examples in one place. In various ways, slot reels like Arthur And The Round Table, Buffalo Blitz, Animals Of The Amazon, Clover Rollover, and more all transport players to natural settings.

The effect, even in something as simple as an arcade slot game, can be somewhat mesmerizing.

Virtual Reality

It goes without saying that virtual reality is now presenting some of the most immersive video games of any kind. And inevitably, some of those games do a nice job of placing players in natural settings. It’s likely we haven’t seen the best of the concept in this category just yet, because VR gaming is still coming into its own a little bit.

But already, games like Catch And Release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, and Nature Treks VR are quite effective at placing players in the natural world.

Climate-Conscious Games

This is not its own category akin to mainstream gaming, casino gaming, or VR. However, climate-conscious games do represent a sort of emerging genre.

These are games that are actually designed to make people more conscious of the natural world, and more inclined to take action to protect it. And already, there are some impressive examples.

The Verge lists Beyond Blue (an ocean exploration game), Endling (a game depicting the effects of climate negligence), and Bee Simulator (just what it sounds like) all as games representing this emerging space.

All do a wonderful job of immersing players in nature, as well as conveying the value of that nature.

Conclusion

Ultimately, to call these game worlds examples of biophilic design may be stretching things a little bit. But the effect of delving into these games can be similar. One can feel rejuvenated, and can in a sense re-establish a connection with nature.

ESG strategy - real estate development fund

how to create a real estate esg plan for real estate developers and investment funds

PHASE 1 / REAL ESTATE SUSTAINABILITY INVESTOR PACK (SIP)

Objective - Deliver an investor pack detailing the company’s existing sustainability credentials, how the business will limit its environmental impact going forward and promote human health both internally in its factories and in its modular properties.

This phase is about capacity building and setting a baseline for the work to follow in Phases 2 and 3. It is both a snapshot of the business’s existing sustainability credentials and a statement of intent for what is to come.

Key activities -

• Internal stakeholder soundings: over the first two weeks we will e-meet with relevant stakeholders within the company to take stock of the current sustainability context and evaluate opportunities for future strategies, this will also lead into building the supply chain map

• Environmental decision making: creation of a Sustainability task force, appointment of a senior Sustainability decision maker and consideration for personnel Sustainability incentives to foster a company culture of sustainability

• Environmental policy development: a strategic document that outlines your environmental principles, priorities and objectives over the short (Phase 2), medium (Phase 3) and long-term. To align with GRESB best practices this SIP will consider the following: biodiversity, climate change, energy consumption, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), material sourcing, pollution prevention, renewable energy, resilience, sustainable procurement, water consumption, waste management, the sustainable workplace and other CSR activities. 

• Making the sustainability case for this particular business model: a robust business case for why this particular business model comes with distinct sustainability credentials, as well as what metrics can be used to quantify the future impact and value created by the company in this regard. 

• Sustainable supply chain material map: a blueprint for further due diligence and opportunities to introduce sustainable building materials while maintaining existing quality / price expectations, including LifeCycle Assessment (raw material production, transportation, in-use, end of life). The resource will include a material map, proposed supplier compliance standards aligned to industry frameworks, identification of supplier engagement opportunities to enhance environmental and social impact. A map of raw material suppliers’ GHG emissions estimates (Scope 3 emissions = value chain impact). NB: this work will be further refined in Phase 2.

• Product design enhancements: having reviewed your current modular product, we will make an initial set of recommendations for alignment with sustainability best practices, e.g. USGBC LEED Multifamily

• Environmental baseline & capacity building: establish a baseline for measurement once the company is operational (factory and construction site), building the capacity and processes for capturing the environmental impact in Phase 2.

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PHASE 2 / REAL ESTATE SUSTAINABILITY PLAN ROLL-OUT 



Objective - Implement and iterate the environmental policy laid out in Phase 1, establishing the company’s environmental responsibility program to conserve natural resources and reduce waste while promoting planetary and human health at each stage of the design, manufacturing and construction cycle. Begin initial tracking of operations.

KPIs - Carbon footprint reduction; embodied carbon reduction; energy reduction; water reduction; waste reduction; renewable energy use (?), sustainable supply chain enhancements, product design enhancements

Key activities -

• Stakeholder engagement: Connect with facilities management, architecture, design and MEP teams, construction team, external suppliers

• Energy, water and waste efficiency: Ongoing data collection, this would include office metering, factory metering and construction site metering, as applicable during this 6-month phase, leading to efficiency measures in line with USGBC LEED green building guidelines

• Carbon footprint & embodied carbon: Map Scope 1 and 2 emissions for the manufacturing facility energy / water / waste consumption once operational, review machinery efficiency certifications, then implement an initial range of embodied carbon reduction measures (focused on the dominant construction materials in the case of embodied carbon), evaluate carbon offset options for other emissions. Identification & tracking of GHG (Scope 1 & 2) operations via energy bills, property, transportation fuel, machinery/equipment

• Sustainable Supply Chain Materials: Life Cycle Assessments of materials with greatest impact, research into alternative building materials; evolution of a sourcing and procurement plan that prioritizes proximity and minimal environmental impact (with due consideration for quality and price expectations) - please note there is the opportunity to build upon this Environmental-oriented work with additional Social / human wellbeing and Governance / policy criteria here (for example in an eventual Phase 3, if appropriate) 

• Product design enhancements: Ongoing proposals for environmentally-friendly design features in line with USGBC LEED guidelines that will enhance the sustainability credentials of MLS and each of its development projects

• Sustainability management software: In the second half of Phase 2, there may be sufficient data pulling through each month to warrant a sustainable data management software subscription, initially we plan to manually collate GHG data, for ongoing data management efficiency however we would recommend evaluating / testing a software solution such as Planetly or Sustain.Life, for this allow approx. US$1k per month

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environmental policy in esg real estate

Objective - effectively managing the company’s environmental responsibility, conserving resources and reducing waste while continuing to deliver the highest-quality sustainable products to customers 

KPIs - carbon footprint reduction; embodied carbon reduction;; energy / water / waste reduction; renewable energy use; # of homes built with a certified HERS® Index Score; % of installed water fixtures certified to WaterSense® specifications; # of homes delivered certified to a third-party multi-attribute green building standard

Key activities 

• Data collection: GHG emissions inventory; energy / water / waste management; 

• Life Cycle Assessment: Sourcing of building Materials 

• Environmental impact assessment / ecological impacts 

• Sustainability initiatives: Energy / water / waste reduction; carbon footprint & embodied carbon reduction; materials selection; product design ; climate change mitigation 

• Environmental policy development 

• Certifications: WGBC Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment, USGBC LEED Commercial Building Operations & Maintenance (costed separately)

• ESG management software / resources - Measurbl (approx. US $17k per annum) ; emissions calculations, certification support, target setting, reporting aligned to Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures / TCFD, GRESB, Carbon Disclosure Project / CDP 

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social policy in esg real estate

Objective - creating a diverse, inclusive and safe workplace that empowers employees to deliver the best results for our customers. Increasing access to high-quality, affordable sustainable homes . Leveraging the company’s talent and resources to support social impact and community development work. 

KPIs - workforce demographics, Total recordable incident rate (TRIR) and fatality rate, employee satisfaction, $ invested in social impact, # of volunteer hours, # of beneficiaries of social impact work, # of homes sold to qualified low-income customers, average # of training hours completed, # of employees trained  

Key activities 

• Human capital management strategy - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,  talent acquisition, career development & training, employee engagement & recognition 

• Health & safety strategy - education, training and auditing, including Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)

• Social impact strategy - partner selection, impact measurement, employee volunteering, corporate giving,  examples: partnership with Habitat for Humanity provide products + employee volunteering; special financing for low-income qualified customers 

• Employee engagement survey 

• Stakeholder engagement - materiality assessments, impact assessments, stakeholder consultations and discussions 

• Building Certifications -  e.g. WELL / FITWEL / RESET AIR (each costed separately)

• ESG management software - e.g.Brightest Platform - impact measurement, stakeholder engagement, volunteering, supply chain environmental management (approx. Us $6k per annum)

governance policy in esg real estate

Objective -  promoting the highest standards of transparency, integrity, and trustworthiness while maintaining a culture of ethics

KPIs - # of employees trained on ethics, # of security breaches, total diverse supplier spend, total hours of training provided to suppliers 

Key activities 

• Policy development - corporate governance guidelines, code of conduct, supplier code of conduct, data privacy and security, procurement strategy 

• Enterprise risk management program - include climate risk associated with the business 

• Responsible supply chain management program - supplier conduct, ESG requirements, supplier diversity, auditing, sustainable material sourcing 

• Compliance training and monitoring 

• Data privacy and cybersecurity - customer data protection 

• Reporting to stakeholders - annual report, ESG report (GRI US$6k, SASB, TCFD-aligned), GRESB benchmarking (costed separately)

• ESG management software - Workiva for compliance reporting and policies (US $1k / annum per user)
  
  

Biophilic design in the WELL Building Standard

what role does biophilic design play in the well building standard for human health?

The verdant rooftop courtyard of Montoya co-working and event venue, Barcelona, Spain, exemplifies a biophilic environment as outlined by certification standards like the WELL Building Standard. This approach addresses health and wellbeing issues in urban environments by integrating natural elements to improve overall quality of life.

What is the definition of biophilic design?

Biophilic design is about combining nature, sustainability, and well-being interiors by integrating the natural world into our built environment to create spaces that are better aligned with our evolutionary history, that offer some kind of nature connection rather than turning their back on Mother Nature completely. Biophilic design principles emphasize integrating natural elements into designs to enhance well-being, sustainability, and the human-nature connection.

Biophilic elements play a crucial role in enhancing well-being and sustainability by incorporating natural elements into architectural and interior designs.

Tools available to us include indoor and outdoor landscaping, vertical garden walls, air-purifying plants, natural aromatherapy, natural soundscapes, circadian lighting strategies, providing views of nature, creating scenes of natural beauty, the deliberate use of natural patterns, colours, textures, materials, fabrics, and natural elements - to name just a few.

what is the well building standard?

The WELL Certification process for WELL V2 is now widely established as the leading healthy building and wellness real estate standard in the world today. It is essentially a series of guidelines backed by rigorous scientific research and sustainable design principles, that when taken together, will guide a real estate project, whether new build construction or refurbishment and fit-out, towards a final product that is aligned with human health and wellness.

To gain in-depth knowledge about integrating biophilic principles into WELL-certified projects, consider enrolling in a biophilic design course or an online course. These courses provide comprehensive guidance on incorporating nature into architectural and interior designs, focusing on residential spaces, workplace environments, and public spaces.

Sections of the V2 standard are dedicated to Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind, Community & Innovation.

What services do WELL Building Standard consultants offer?

Consultants specialising in the WELL Building Standard for real estate are likely to come from engineering, architecture & interiors, sustainability and/or real estate development backgrounds.

In our case as Biofilico, we have a combination of creative design and real estate development experience, we also have a niche in biophilic design consultancy as well as integrating health and fitness into the built environment.

This means we approach projects from a very different perspective compared to say, a team with an engineering background.

Although we have a wellness architect on our team, we are consultants first and foremost, meaning we are accustomed to working alongside and advising large-scale architecture studios, project management teams and developers on wellbeing design, healthy interiors and biophilic design. We also help clients implement biophilic design principles effectively in their projects. Consultants can benefit from biophilic design online resources to stay updated with the latest trends and practices.

Does the WELL standard favour biophilic design with natural elements?

The short answer is ‘yes’ it does, and likely in more ways than you might think as there are both direct and indirect references to ‘nature’ and ‘biophilia‘ in the standard, just as there are ‘direct‘ and ‘indirect‘ forms of biophilia at our disposal when designing an interior space.

Knowing how to make the most of biophilic design strategies therefore requires in-depth understanding not just of its breadth and depth as a design concept, but a combination of creativity with rigorous knowledge of the standard itself.

Fundamentally, biophilic design contributes to a wider healthy building strategy by benefits on air quality, mental wellbeing, healthy materials, nature connectedness and more, just as it contributes to a green building strategy in terms of sustainability, and so on. The WELL standard encourages designers to incorporate biophilic design to enhance these benefits.

What credits can biophilic design principles help with in the WELL standard?

There are obvious places to go hunting for credits in the WELL building standard as a biophilic design consultant, most notably in the MIND section where connection to nature is referenced in Precondition 02 Nature and Place as well as M09 Enhanced Access to Nature. So, let’s address these before moving on to the arguably less obvious credits that biophilic design can contribute to in the standard.

MIND / Precondition 02 Nature & Place

Here we are on our home turf, this is the main biophilic design credit for all intents and purposes, as it rewards the use of natural materials, patterns, shapes, colors, images or sounds as well as the integration of plants, the presence of water features and nature views into the project.

Part 2 of this WELL Standard Precondition is a more cerebral concept yet also provides considerably more creative freedom for architects and designers to interpret the brief through the lens of biophilic design as we are tasked with creating design elements that celebrate company culture or that of the local community, a celebration of place (connecting to the location in other words), elements of art and, wait for it, ‘human delight’.

MIND / Enhanced Access to Nature M09

M09 is then a continuation of this as it gives specifications of what percentage of workstations on each floor of the project should have direct views of indoor plants, a natural landscape or indoor water feature. If we play that one through to its logical conclusion, the extent of the indoor biophilic design interventions will depend greatly on the availability of external views onto natural landscapes.

If none are available as the project is in a densely populated urban area such as a business district, then the focus will of necessity have to be on bringing the outside world in, if the project is to secure these two credits for M09 by integrating natural elements.

MIND / Precondition Promote Mental Health & Wellbeing and MIND / M07 Restorative Spaces

One possible component of Part 1 in the MIND Precondition is a dedicated restoration space or recharge room.

We specialise in creating biophilic, nature-inspired restorative spaces such as the one above that we created for the HERO Group headquarters in Switzerland in 2019.

One restorative space can then double-up for credit scores in the M07 credit as well, provided it adopts a multi-sensory design covering lighting, sound, thermal comfort, seating, biophilia and ‘calming colours, textures and forms’ (this is clearly open to interpretation but a biophilic approach is always going to be a winner in this regard, with proven science behind its calming properties).

In 2017 Biofilico carried out a own scientific research study into this very subject for EcoWorld Ballymore in London for their Wardian Residences:

NOURISHMENT / N01 Fruits & Vegetables

Part Two: Promote Fruit & Vegetable visibility - create enticing displays in an office canteen or kitchen area that takes on near sculptural form, just a little creativity can go a long way here.

NOURISHMENT / N07 Nutrition Education

A hydroponic garden wall or individual hydroponic towers of edible lettuce leaves and herbs for example can provide opportunities for gardening / planting workshops with staff as well as additional biophilic decoration for the office on an ongoing basis. This strategy also doubles up as a solution for N12 Food Production, see below, as well as N13 Local Food Environment - contributing food produced on-site back to the local community.

NOURISHMENT / N12 Food Production

The provision of a gardening space within 0.25miles of the project can be easily solved either with a hydroponic farm set-up in the lobby or with an urban garden on the rooftop of the building if feasible. Such a facility needs to be accessible to regular occupants during. the daytime and be between 200ft2 and 1500ft2 in size according to the number of regular occupants in the project.

LIGHT / L03 Circadian lighting design

Circadian lighting is a foundation of biophilic design as the key aim is to align our body’s clocks with the regular cycle of dawn and dusk. We have written elsewhere on circadian lighting strategies and how to implement them. L03 in WELL specifies “appropriate exposure to light for maintaining circadian health and aligning the circadian rhythm with the day-night cycle”.

MOVEMENT / V08 Physical Activity Spaces & Equipment

Here WELL are looking for evidence that there is a gym or fitness facility available at no cost for regular building occupants to. use, either in the building itself, nearby or in a nearby outdoor space such as a park.

We specialise in designing green fitness spaces that secure additional points within the WELL certification for MIND M07 Restorative Spaces and MIND M09 Enhanced Access to Nature (using biophilic design that brings the outside world in).

MATERIALS / X06 VOC Restrictions and X07 Materials Transparency

To secure these credits requires an understanding of healthy materials and indoor air quality as well as biophilic design.

The key concept is that all natural materials such as stone, wood, bamboo and cork do not contain any VOCs and come with their own material transparency.

Our main issue here is ensuring that we specify the finishes and fit-out substances such as primers, glues and adhesives as these can inadvertently carry chemicals containing VOCs, thereby negating the good work done by specifying an organic materials in the first place!

To enquire about our services as biophilic design consultants for WELL certified projects, contact us here.

Biophilic Design and Wellbeing Interiors- an evolutionary perspective

A lot of the same principles are at the root of biophilic design, wellbeing interiors and healthy buildings. Here we explore the synergies between these distinct but ultimately complementary concepts.

Q. What is your personal background?

Matt Morley: I come from a real estate development background. I was a creative director for real estate developer for many years, from there grew a passion in what we could call healthy buildings or what's often described as wellbeing design in the real estate sector.

In parallel with that I was always heavily into nature and spending time outside and looking for natural alternatives to what I was doing indoors, so if we put that all into a shaker, the cocktail that comes out is this company Biofilico.

I started with gyms under the Biofit moniker, that remains a highly specialized business providing consultancy services to hotel groups and real estate businesses on creating green, healthy gym spaces with style.

It's a very niche market, but there's a market for it, and it's been growing steadily over the last five or six years I’m glad to say.

Q. How did you move into the workplace and residential sectors?

I noticed that there were adjacent categories where applying the same principles of how you to create a healthy building or biophilic space could be of value.

So I soon started working on office projects and more recently residential, as well as hotels.

Q: How do you think about healthy interior spaces?

For me it all goes back to our evolutionary history which is obviously so much longer and more extensive than the history we have of living indoors in centrally heated, air conditioned, electrically illuminated environments.

This post-industrial age is just a tiny blip in our evolutionary history over the last call it three and a half million years or 200,000 years if we're going back to the start of Homosapiens. No matter how you look at it, our ancestors spent a long ,long time surviving out in nature, that's our DNA, that’s what our genetic make-up is still equipped for but contemporary lifestyles are largely disconnected from that. For better or worse.

For me, that's where biophilic design comes by in trying to realign our indoor environments with the natural world and our evolutionary past.

Q: How do you define biophilia and biophilic design?

There are two versions for that. There's the version that you will read online that says either Eric Fromm or E.O. Wilson coined the term but for me all they were doing was giving a name to the innate connection that we all have as human beings to nature. They didn’t invent anything as such.

Biophilic design then takes that a step further by bringing it indoors, into the modern world and the realities of life today where we spend most of our time in some form of built environment.

When I talk about it I'm very much pushing the idea of biophilic design bridging two worlds, between green buildings and healthy buildings.

A lot of the work for LEED or BREEAM building certifications is focused on the environment while WELL and FITWEL building certifications zero in on the human aspect of buildings and interiors, the health and wellbeing side. Together, that gives us people and planet.

Healthy spaces are more to do with the people, the inhabitants or occupants and the users while the planet angle is more related to impact on raw materials, pollution, and so on, Biophilic design combines elements of the two, so a natural environment that is both healthy for the people who spend time in it but also healthy for the planet in terms of its impact on the world around us.

Biophilic design joins the dots between nature, human health and environmental wellbeing.

Q. What are the key principles of wellbeing design?

One key component is indoor air quality - here we are working to purify the air via enhancements to the ventilation system’s filters for example but it is also about the materials and finishes introduced into that space during the fit-out. Are they natural, non-chemical materials or are they materials containing plastics of chemical treatments for example, such as flame retardants?

There's a lot of interesting research out there about the mental aspect as well so if air quality is about physical wellbeing in one sense it is also a way to boost mental performance, through productivity and concentration levels. It is a way to improve how office workers perform during the day or how residents sleep at night. So producing in one sense and recovering in another, both linked to the indoor air quality.

Then we have light quality - having a connection to nature with a view out onto plants, greenery or a landscape will serve to exposure you to certain color spectrums of light at certain times of day. This can be supplemented with smart lights indoors that produce the ‘right kind’ of blue-white light during the day time before softening to a more amber tone towards the end of the day.

Philips Hue bulbs are great. I've been using them for a few years, but there are others out there now too. It's a relatively simple system, you don't have to have it set up to your Wi Fi network if you decide you want everything grounded and you want to avoid EMF risks, but that's a separate topic!

These lights serve as my alarm in the mornings so I wake with a replica of sunlight that slowly increases over a 30-minute period in what is hopefully my pitch black bedroom - to promote deep sleep and recovery.

Q: What air-purifying plants do you recommend?

It's relatively easy to find air-purifying plants that can be kept indoors with indirect light and they'll do a lot of good in terms of taking out the bad stuff, and pumping oxygen back into your home, for more Oxygen and less CO2.

Air-purifiers simply enhance and improve that same process, as plants can only do so much alone given the quality of inner-city air nowadays! The key is to go big, don’t hold back on your plant strategy, aim for six to eight plants per person in a room of say, 25m2

If you live in a remote location, if you're living in the middle of the woods or mountains, that's one thing. If you're in the middle of a city then I tend to hack that scenario a little bit with an air purifier running during the night. In other words, a combination of wellness tech and natural solutions is best.

In terms of plant species, my go-to species is the ‘ZZ’ plant as they're really resistant. They do a lot of good for you as well so I recommend those in your home especially.

For a home gym, garage gym or garden gym, space is probably limited so your floor space is at a premium, here I'm looking for low maintenance plants while keeping my floor space free for training activities like crawling, running, jumping, and so on. Generally, potted plants on the floor in your gym is a bad idea, especially if cats and dogs are in the mix as well.

Q: How do you use wabi-sabi design in wellbeing interiors?

This is a Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection. So imagine an organic apple, perhaps not the best looking, it may not be perfect but it is going to taste 100 times better than one that has been genetically modified to look ‘perfect’. The organic apple is full of vitamins and is far closer to an apple as nature intended it to be.

So wabi-sabi design can have a patina of age, curves instead of right angles, or a wobbly edge to a handcrafted ceramic plate for example.

Q: What healthy materials do you work with most often?

I always try to recommend a non-toxic, chemical and VOC-free paint for interior walls. There's this whole world of eco-friendly paints out there now, for example from the likes of Graphenstone or Lakeland, both fine examples of what is possible today from a sustainability perspective. Some paints can even absorb unwanted gases and chemicals that might be coming out of the plastics in your furniture.

Flooring is another key area to focus on for healthy materials. There's lots of high quality rubber and cork gym floor options out there that are generally much better than some of the cheaper flooring tile solutions, if natural wood, bamboo or stone is not within the realms of possibility budget-wise.

Q: What segments of the real estate market do you expect to see biophilic design impacting in future?

At the moment I'm looking at example at two different projects around the ‘senior living’ space. So, what I see is that post-COVID there's a huge spike in demand in advisory services on healthy materials as well as projects aimed at creating healthy indoor environments, and where better to do that than in a health clinic or residential development for seniors?

There are different concerns according to the specific project type but what makes it interesting is that they all join up and overlap in the end, at least in terms of my consultancy briefs.

a guide to workplace wellbeing design

What is workplace wellness design?

For us the concept of workplace wellness is about using wellbeing interior design combined with a number of strategies to ‘hack’ an office environment for productivity, concentration, collaboration and a range of both physical and mental health measures.

Tools at our fingertips range from active design, lighting, recharge rooms, improved air quality, flooring, decor, furniture, space planning, signage, food and drink, wellness programs and more.

Company culture and workplace wellness

You can go a step further by fostering a company culture that, for example, accepts standing meetings as normal, or that encourages up to two person walking meetings if there's a courtyard, garden, rooftop or park accessible nearby.

This starts from the C-suite down in terms of what is deemed acceptable or even admirable behavior, and then recognizing that there are many other ways to approach the work day now, for example by using a standing desk to stay upright for most of the day instead of slouched at a desk.

That can be a game changer especially for anyone who's ever experienced back pain, just by being on your feet, and having a small mat under your feet makes a massive difference, such as avoiding the mid-afternoon energy dip.

What is Wellness Lighting?

Increasingly easy to integrate into our home and work spaces, wellness lighting can be something as simple as a desk light that pumps different colored tones of light in your direction during the day to ensure you have adequate amounts of blue-white light during the day and, equally, a more amber hued light after dark, whilst still maintaining the necessary energy levels and promoting deep slight at night.

Circadian lighting systems follow this same routine every day, mimicking the rising and setting of the sun in tune with the seasons, rather than trying to create an ‘always on’ interior environment that can mess with our sleeping patterns.

Productivity and workplace wellness

When we talk about workplace design or healthy co-working office design and its impact on worker productivity we are typically talking about productivity improvements arin the 5%-6% changes although it can often feel like a lot more for those who manage to side-step the afternoon energy crash.

Acoustics and focus in the workplace

Flooring can make a real difference both in terms of acoustics as hard surfaces reflect or ‘bounce’ noise around and reduce the acoustic quality in a workspace, for example magnifying conversations between colleagues on the other side of the office.

So putting in an acoustic underlay, with a flooring tile that perhaps has a visual connection to nature, is recycled or upcycled, and is installed with a natural adhesive, and can eventually be taken back by the the flooring supply company at the end of its life in 5-10 years time, all of this can complete change the acoustics in an office whilst fitting in with a sustainability strategy as well.

If there's a rebound in terms of echo in your workplace, then look at the flooring first of all and try to cover it with rugs, then consider more soft furnishings, acoustic paint or acoustic ceiling panels, for a complete acoustic strategy.

Sustainability and wellbeing in workplace design

Integrating elements of sustainability and human wellbeing in interiors for a workplace is now the holy grail of design for us at Biofilico. It's also like a Pandora's Box once you start looking under the hood of everything. How do you prioritize what matters most? Sometimes there are compromises to be made, in fact, most of the time but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying!

For example having a work desk positioned next to a window that attracts plenty of natural daylight is a real help in terms of resting the eyes, boosting energy levels, provide access to fresh air outside, perhaps combined with a smart desk light for the evenings, while using a standing desk with a sustainable bamboo desktop, such as one from FULLY.

Standing desks in a healthy office

A standing desk can promote movement and reduce sitting time obviously but it is always best to pair it with a stool, in order to take some weight off the feet from time to time, giving us an option to take a call on our feet while moving around the office, then come back to sit down briefly while writing an important email, before returning to standing position again to complete some more administrative or creative tasks.

For more details on the role of ergonomic furniture in a healthy workplace interior see our blog post here.

Indoor air quality at work

We all know how important it is to bring plants into our work spaces and there are half a dozen that are especially good for this purpose, they are air-purifiers approved by a NASA study. It is recommended to combine them with an air purifier at home, or enhanced carbon filters in a commercial HVAC system in a shared office scenario.

Healthy materials are another key component in an indoor air quality strategy at work. Wellbeing interiors specify healthy, non-toxic materials such as wood, bamboo, cork, linen, wool, leather even recycled materials with health product declarations (ingredient lists showing they contain no harmful chemicals).

What is active design in the workplace?

Today there is an increasing understanding amongst workplace consultants, healthy building experts and HR specialists that sitting at a desk all day long without moving, with your hips at a 90 degree angle, your back hunched over, is simply no longer adisable. There are other options out there now, workers do not need to put their bodies (and minds) through that.

Part of the answer is in fostering incidental and frequent movement during the work day. Another response is creating different workspaces designed for different tasks around the office, implicitly encouraging movement between those spaces during your workday.

It’s all about understanding that connection between your sleep and your mental performance, your nutrition, and your, your performance at work and also what you're doing with your body during those hours of work so even if it's just getting outside or finding a bit of space to have a stretch, getting out your yoga mat or rolling out some stiff muscles on a foam roller, or even five minutes of burpees, bodyweight squats and press-ups, it' doesn’t really matter but staying active is the key. Keep your blood flowing and your energy levels high. It may just be a quick movement snack but it can be as good as a shot of coffee for some people!

Employee health wellness with Wellable

The ‘Green & Healthy Places’ podcast series covers sustainability, wellbeing and community in office, residential and hotel real estate today.

Welcome to episode 030 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast in which we explore the themes of sustainability and wellbeing in real estate, workplaces and hospitality today.

I’m your host, Matt Morley, Founder of Biofilico wellbeing design and Biofit Health & Fitness.

This time in Boston in the US to talk to Nick Patel, CEO of Wellable employee wellness.

We discuss how Wellable are aiming to be the Netflix of wellness content, how existing trends in workplace wellbeing have simply been accelerated by COVID, how mental health at work has become less taboo than ever before, his views on healthy building certifications as a communications tool for brands that care about employee wellbeing and his thoughts on the role technology, culture and physical spaces play in creating a truly healthy workplace experience.

GUEST / NICK PATEL, CEO

• https://www.wellable.co/home

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellable-inc-/

• https://www.facebook.com/GetWellable/

HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR CONVERSATION

Being healthy to the earth often equates to being healthy to yourself

Companies are starting to invest in community health initiatives, so not just helping their employees who are living in those communities, but helping all local citizens

There's a shift happening from ROI, return on investment, to VOI value on investment

Healthy people are typically still very active and alert in productivity terms at 4pm

No one ever asked us to create content, on the health benefits of gratitude for example, the health benefits of finding purpose in your life, or the science of happiness, but we did it!

---

Talking workplace wellbeing with Wellable

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI (excuse typos!)

Matt Morley

Nick, thanks so much for being here with us.. I want to start with how you’d pitch a real estate developer landlord or a corporate executive to describe the problem you're solving.

Nick Patel

Yeah, fundamentally, we're in the business of making individuals healthy, happy and more productive, not just professionally but in their personal lives as well. And so our goal in terms of fulfilling that mission is working with employers on a health plan for their properties, really they’re the sponsors, who can support tailored wellness programmes for their constituents, whether that's their employees, or their tenants, whoever that may be.

Now, if we're talking to an employer, I usually always open with the fact that having a wellness programme is the right thing to do for a number of different reasons. There are benefits in terms of business success,. So having a thriving workforce is also associated with having employees who are excited about coming to work every day, excited about giving 100% of themselves into that job, that results in more creativity, more engagement, more retention, all these things will translate into the bottom line for those companies.

When we're talking to a property manager or building owner, it's the same concept, it's just a different channel to that individual. In that case, if you're a property manager, or building owner, your client is the employer. So assisting them in critical things for their business is helpful to attract and retain those tenants, garner higher rents, things like that. So implementing programmes that help their employees lead healthy lives, takes one thing off their plate or supports them in their own personal initiatives or company initiatives, all of which results in just better business success.

Matt Morley

Very cool. I like the way you're presenting it not just as as filling a gap or reducing a negative impact. But in fact, spinning on the upside, which is adding to the business and generating positivity, generating revenue, whatever it might be, rather than just preventing bad things from happening. I think that's a fundamental point on that topic.

We’ve just been through a roller coaster of a past 16 months, how have you at Wellable had to adapt within that employee wellness space? And how have you had to adjust your products and services in line with what's been going on?

Nick Patel

Great question. I think, depending on when you would ask me this question, during the last 18 months, the response would be somewhat or significantly different. I think right now, we're in a place where we're looking backwards, and kind of reflecting on these moments, for us least in America, the vaccine rates are high, we're feeling people coming back to work, things like that. And so as I look back, even coming into March until today, I felt like we're going through three different phases.

I think most businesses went through this in some way, shape, or form, even ones that were thriving in a digital world, and ones that were heavily impacted in the sense that they were on site, or had to be physically present. But they all had this element that no one escaped this. And so there's this recovery phase, right, there's a response phase, and there's reimagined phase.

The recovery phrase for us specifically, we are a comprehensive wellness provider. So what that means is that we are offering a number of different solutions, all independently, that employers or properties can implement in their programme. So that includes software, and that includes services, which were at least pre COVID, delivered primarily on site.

So for us, our recovery phase dealt with helping our clients transition to digital solutions. We had an airline as a customer and as you can imagine, every aspect of their world was turned upside down. I couldn't imagine being in the call centre for that company. And so, they were concerned about health and workplace wellbeing, they're doing it for all the right reasons. But practically, it was something that they could not even think about addressing in the month of March, April, May.

There's a response phase once we realise what was happening, and how we're going to respond. We tried a number of different things. We launched a programme almost initially. So it was very impressive that by mid March, we're launching a new product, we called at the time Wellable LIVE and it was the alternative to our on site services business. It was a streaming service. We were doing effectively Zoom fitness classes, Zoom webinars and things like that, that were throughout the day, five days a week that anyone can watch recordings of.

We were concerned about bandwidth, internet, microphone access, and we're sending out iPads to improve their quality because they were using home computers and things like that. At the end of the day, I think we're proud of that product. But it wasn't something that we saw that was going to be long term.

Now we're entering that reimagined phase of what the world is going to look like, in the short term being 12 months or so also in a very long term. So pretty quickly by May we said, we think the solution if you're going to do digital products, or data content, ‘live’ is nice in many ways, but you are missing out so many the benefits of being able see someone's yoga posture, for example, in a live session, right? So we end up launching what we call Wellable on demand. It is our version of what we think is going to be the future, like most products that are in this early stage, it's still in its infancy, and it's still growing and changing. But really, it's thinking about Netflix for wellness content.

So for us, we initially launched in July, a full library of high quality, you know, multiple camera angles, miked up instructors, things like that of all fitness classes for everything Pilates, yoga, prenatal / postnatal workouts, things like that. And from there, we're exploring additional content, is it healthy cooking, is it just written content in terms of recipes, we already launched a mindfulness and meditation series as part of that. And that's what we're thinking the future of like this digital concept, because what we're seeing is a lot of our clients mainly are still trying to figure out permanently what it looks like. But for the most part, in general, there's going to be more remote work than there was before. And whether that's employees in the office only three days a week, full time remote, every wellness programme is going to need some type of digital element and content delivery. And I think that's what the future for on demand product is going to be.

Matt Morley

So with the shift then to to a largely digital platform in terms of the interface itself, how are your different audience groups interacting with Wellable? Is it via a specific app? Is it essentially online?

Nick Patel

Yes, that's a tough question to answer, because for our perspective, how we deliver health and wellness solutions, is that structurally, we offer a number of different products and offerings, all of which can be purchased independently, and mixed and matched. And so the way we think about is that every employer is unique culturally, you know, where are they based, geographically, the physical space, things like that. And they're comprised of very unique individuals. And in most cases, it's a very diverse subset of people, all of which want different things right.

For some people, having group fitness classes is a great opportunity. Others prefer a digital engagement experience and mobile app, and we try to offer all those independently of each other. So if you look at 100 of our customers, and look what they're doing broadly with Wellable, for the most part, they're doing things that are at the very least, different in small ways, and in some cases, very significantly different. No one's right or wrong. There's not a wellness programme that's perfect for every group or every building. And so that's what we're experiencing.

When you think about how people are interacting with our our solutions, in general, it's not always necessarily a digital interaction. Although that is our primary product, we are known as a software provider, but it could be, you know, pre COVID groups that are just doing things on site, that was everyone, whether it's a warehouse company, or things like that everyone was always on site. And that's the way they felt the best opportunity to deliver was. And so it's just terms of how we communicate our programmes and things like that. It really again, depends on the programme for us, we are an end to end provider so that includes the promotions of the programme , the delivery execution, capturing and responding to feedback.

So to the extent our clients give us that authority to message and communicate directly with the employee, we take advantage of that with tailored messages for people who aren't even participating to people who are very active and we don't want to disrupt their way they're interacting with that programme. For our best clients. Like I said before, they're individuals or their employees are very unique and different. They all want different things. They offer a very diverse mix of our solutions to their clients, or their employees, knowing that someone gravitate to some type of solutions other gravitate to others. And so our communication strategy kind of matches that depending on what it is, depending on who that demographic is or trying to a diverse set of outreach and things like that to capture just a broad audience and then hopefully allow them to self identify what makes the most sense for them.

workplace wellness trends

Matt Morley

I think it connects very neatly with the idea that workplace culture and to some extent the brand itself, as in how the individual company's brand values and mission statement is reflected in terms of how they operate at a corporate or other employee level. So that makes sense.

There's there's just so much happening in this workplace wellness space right now. And there's there's a lot of players emerging, a lot of content being created. You've been in the game since 2012. How have you seen the workplace wellness scene evolve? Obviously, there's sort of there's going to be presumably a pre COVID and a post COVID. Right. But I mean, like just sort of looking at it or bigger scale over the last decade, like what have been the major shifts that you've seen that you're perhaps at a strategic medium term level tapping into?

Nick Patel

Yeah, there’s clearly a pre COVID, post COVID narrative there. The one thing I'll say about COVID, I think everything is still settling a little bit. But I think the long term takeaway from COVID, from our perspective, and I think it kind of makes sense in most industries, is that it didn't necessarily change the world, it really accelerated what was already happening, right. And so remote work, was becoming more and more popular anyway but companies were hesitant, but due to COVID, they were forced to do it. Then they realised there are some growing pains, especially when you're doing it unplanned But they're realising their sales teams can be productive while not travelling, which some groups are already experiencing, and experimenting with.

I think the wellness industry in general, is similar. The trends that we are experiencing, we're just accelerated. It's been eight years since we were founded, so much has changed. You know, the funny little story when we first started, Fitbit had just created their Fitbit zip. So if you remember that, it's like the one that you clip on your belt. And their real selling point was, Oh, it's Bluetooth oriented, and you have an app, it wasn't anything about being wrist worn, or anything of that nature. And at the time, when we first started, you know, the iPhone was one or two years old, we thought the future of health and wellbeing from a digital perspective, that is what's going to be with these consumer apps and technologies. And so rather, you know, we view ourselves, you have to distinguish between the two, there's consumer technology, there's a direct and individual, there's enterprise wellness technologies. And that's when you're going to go to a property and employer health plan and asked them to be the sponsor of a programme.

Back in 2012, we thought the future was going to be connecting all these consumer technologies and the consumer grade solutions, let that market determine who the best products were, aggregate that to a single platform and expose that to employees, or tenants, whoever it may be. And that was a big differentiator. I remember going to employer groups trying to talk to them as a small company, and made the comment, look at this Fitbit, it's going to be great. People are using it. And they're asking the question, are people really going to use a Fitbit or activity tracker? So that was a story in 2012. Now, if you didn't connect to a Fitbit, like at the time, our competitors weren't doing that, that was like the novel. And that was our biggest key differentiator.

Now, if you don't connect to Fitbit, Apple Watch, Garmin, these technologies, it's a non starter. So in eight years, what became our biggest differentiator is just table stakes.

Mental health in the workplace

Just in general, I think the two biggest trends that were always happening pre COVID, were accelerated due to COVID. And we were experiencing these changes at different rates, certainly early years was a move to holistic wellbeing and considering mental health, certainly pre COVID it was still taboo in the workplace in terms of a conversation. Less so now, we’ve made a lot of progress due to COVID, for sure.

But it was always something that was gaining momentum. Now when we talk to employers, they're asking, How does Wellable address mental health in the workplace? They've asked us about financial wellbeing things of that nature that just weren't nearly as popular even five years ago.

the shift away from biometric screenings

The second big takeaway, at least in the US market, for sure, is that the original wellness programmes first introduced in the 1970s, and became really popular in the 90s and early 2000s. Effectively had I'm oversimplifying here, two big elements - a biometric screening and a health risk assessment. If I draw your blood of all your employees or tenants, I can capture information that data is good for you. And my argument be just because you have data doesn't mean it's good, right? There's gonna be some actionable intelligence from that data that makes it valuable, but data in itself is just attribute. And then the same thing to health risk assessment, it was heavily clinical focus. It was a self assessment. So you're often asking clinical questions to an employee who doesn't necessarily know the answer, and just feels like they want to get to the assessment and answer the questions.

Tonnes of research has always questioned those, even though for decades, but they have this element of stickiness to it. Employers like Safeway is a very famous case study for employee wellness programme here in the United States. And their whole programme is built off biometric screenings. And if you're Safeway, it's hard for you to walk away from a programme that you built the head, a case study on it that's been very widely touted and things like that.

But new programmes aren't adopting the solutions. And we were found find the old programmes, were willing to slowly peel them away. COVID certainly accelerated that in the sense that you couldn't do biometric screens anymore. So a lot of companies suspended that for the first time in a decade or so. And now they're ask themselves, well, we didn't have it before, our wellness programme is still showing positive results. The biometric screening doesn't cover certain holistic elements like mental health and things like that. And I think they're slowly moving away from those. So those are the two big things I find are trends that are happening or celebrate COVID or continue happening. It's a transition to holistic wellbeing, and moving away from things like biometric screenings and health risk assessments.

Healthy building certifications & wellbeing interiors

Matt Morley

So a lot of change, a lot of movement, an industry that's in full evolution. So let’s shift onto healthy building certifications, where you're dealing not just with wellbeing interior design, but also operational and facilities management processes. So these third party standards like WELL and FITWEL. Now, that can either happen at the owner level, or it can happen at the employer level. how does Wellable connect with tall that?

Nick Patel

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would even ask why do we have these certifications, I think it helps people hit certain standards and goals. But I think for really, it's a good way to communicate. If you're in a building, for example, it's a way for you to communicate that we are investing in the health and wellbeing of the tenants. And for most companies who value health and wellbeing that may impact their decision in terms of where they want to set their office and things like that.

It's similar to the ‘healthiest places to work’, companies often strive for that, because the recognition of that healthiest place to work, attracts the right talent, emphasises your values, in terms of caring for the employees and things like that. So it ends up being the end product.

In many ways, I have a number of things that you're engaging with, prior to ever getting that certification. And so as it relates to healthy spaces, especially this new normal, or this kind of post COVID normal that is still kind of unfolding and figure out how it all shakes out. We found or we find I think that promoting health and well being in general, across three buckets is where employers should strive. And we help in many of those areas, but not all of those areas. And by engaging in kind of these three areas or buckets - technology, culture and physical spaces.

Tech, culture and designing physical space for wellbeing

Technology, we always talked about this even prior COVID remote work was increasing, people are looking to be healthy, not just you know, when they're in eight hours a day, in their offices and things like that. And to be able to have a distributed health and wellbeing strategy, there has to be a technology element, there's no real way to do that well outside of that element. And so investing the right technologies, and we're a technology company, as a relates to health and wellbeing is really important. And we offer a number of solutions, depending on the type of wellness programme that you want to offer.

Culture. I always talk to a talk about properties in this way is that people forget that properties have culture to culture, something that companies often associate what's your company culture, but properties have culture too. And it's from you know, is it inclusive? How is it dynamic in the public spaces, all those things are pervasive. And people gravitate to the culture. I mean, that's what culture has is what people are doing when someone doesn't tell them what to do in some ways, right. And so buildings have cultures, employees have culture. And where we've always said is we provide content, we blog a lot, we have thought leadership, we actually have a group within our company that does proprietary research on a number of things, including culture. And that's something that we try to improve, but it's really something outside the scope of what our company does, outside of like guidance and consultation. So we know it's one of the key pillars. And, you know, we're actually personally focusing a lot on diversity, equity inclusion right now in terms of just research and understanding what that means.

We read an article from a professor at Harvard that that summed up pretty well, she said - there's no amount of employee wellness programmes, or company benefits that can offset racism in the workplace. That hit the nail on the head as relates to how important culture is as relates to health and wellbeing.

So then we have physical spaces, whether it's on site gyms, healthy food options, air quality, things of that nature.

As companies or buildings kind of pursue health and wellbeing in the lens of these three areas, I find that they typically can sail through the certification process. And the certification process, in our view, is really getting recognition for all the work you're doing as it relates to health and well being.

Matt Morley

I think that's a crucial insight that to unpack and in a sense demystify some of these healthy building certifications that can seem quite imposing and really a mountain to climb. When you're coming from a standing start. I think the point you're making very clearly, and it's a powerful one, is that if you're active in this space, if you're already engaging with the idea of workplace wellness, and you're looking after your employees, a healthy building certification should be within reach. It's a subtle point, but the certification is really kind of like doing the exam, having done the hard work, right? And Wellable is there to help with some of the hard work. So you can, in a sense, do all of that first, and then the certification just comes later, rather than starting with that and having to roll all of this out, because there's a lot to do.

ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance

So how does Wellable’s work contribute to ESG?

Nick Patel

What's interesting about ESG is that the definition is continuously expanding. So for I think, ESG, when people often associated with this, several years ago, it was around largely a sustainability movement, about going green. And what we found actually, by the requests in demand of our clients, both current perspective is that they often lump that sustainability element into health and wellbeing. And so the general concept being that you know, being healthy to the earth often equates to being healthy to yourself, walking to work or biking to work has both of those benefits. And they're deeply, deeply connected, clean air, good for your body, it's good for the earth, deeply, deeply connected. And so we find that that definition, I would have told you when we first started this company, that we would never be in the concept of sustainability risk broadly. And now we find that they're overlapping very heavily. And so that's where I think our biggest splash happens as a relates to the ESG movement.

But to your point, we often talk to companies, when we think about community health initiatives. And as a public health level, government, especially local governments are doing a really good job about driving Community Health had done an extremely good job of connecting with the private sector, off the concept of Yes, this is the right thing you should do. That is what ESG is about. In many ways, these are the right things you should engage in similar to you should have an employee wellness programme for the right reasons. But by the way, there are all these extra ancillary benefits that come from it.

Community engagement in ESG

In the case of the ESG movement, where we're seeing really big changes and impacts on public health at the local level, it's the private sector, recognising something that was when you would think is fairly obvious is that you recruit and retain employees from the community that you operate in. So if you're in whatever town or city may be, having healthy, happy, healthier citizens of that town or city is going to translate into your company benefits as well. Obviously, your wellness programme can help accelerate those type of things. And we're finding that companies are starting to invest in community health initiatives, so not just helping their employees who are living in those communities, but helping all local citizens is where the wellbeing movement is most deeply tied as relates to ESG.

We started originally, just as employer focus, we've started expanding to properties. And now we have a number of groups, from public health departments and things looking to run community programmes. And largely this is driven by this ESG movement.

Matt Morley

I've seen that very much there's been this kind of kicker in that particular piece of ESG. Around community. Suddenly, the Black Lives Matter moment, I think was a was a turning point in that and it really then suddenly put community up there not just in terms of ethical business practices, or ethical procurement policies for business, in line then with how you look after employee employees, but then there was this piece in between around the community. I think that's, that's a strong point dimension.

Now, but underlying all of this, then is that discussion with the CFO where the saying, okay, but that all sounds great, but you know, show me the data, show me the evidence of how this is having a tangible impact on our staff and on our business. So how does wearable play into that conversation around generating hard data? And if you like, almost analytics around the impact of of working with you?

Nick Patel

Yeah, there's a transition to a couple of questions. Previously, you mentioned about what's changing in the employee wellness space. And I didn't mention this, but this is something that certainly was happening, it's top of the list as well, is that there's a shift from ROI, return on investment, to VOI value on investment.

So the classic model, going back to the, you know, original, old school wellness programmes was that I could invest $1, into an employee wellness programme, and I would extract $2 in savings. You know, if you're in the United States, where you're uncovering your health insurance for all your employees, that would most likely show up in your health care costs. And that's why you did the investment was a strictly financial decision. And what we've transitioned from that, and a couple ways, one, a, that's really hard to measure, right, there are all these external factors that are in play there outside your control COVID. Being a great example, more commonly, you know, a high flu season one year, also has an impact on your claims and things that day to day or year to year, but doesn't necessarily show doesn't always get removed from a wellness programme, per se. Vi, for example, says let's consider those financial benefits, let's consider all these other things to have financial outcomes, but don't show up in a certain hard dollar.

So things like employee retention, depending on the near the number you use, it can be you know, the cost of someone's full salary for a year to just recruit a new employee. So it's always cheaper, like it is in business to retain a customer than find a new one. Same thing with keeping an employee who is familiar with your processes. You don't have to go through the training or the finding that talent, things like that greater productivity, so less sick days, greater productivity in the sense that people have fatigue at the end of the day. And Healthy People are typically still very active and alert in productivity terms at 4pm when they're working and things like that.

So there's a long list of what those value on investment elements could be. So the first place we always start with companies is why are you having this programme? What are those key kind of value on investment metrics that you will measure success? So whenever we have a client join Wellable they fill out a questionnaire and one of the questions is how do you want to measure success and that's really kind of a way to capture these VOI elements, and then from there, you have to capture the data.

So if someone says, Yes, I would like to see less sick days, we need to find out where in there, you know, time attendance records that data sets. If it's about health care costs, how can we have access to those health care claims to begin to measure those things. And so for most companies, especially the ones we're working with, who in many cases are either transitioning from a different wellness vendor to our platform, or just launching a programme for the first time, they conceptually have an idea of things they want to track, but they don't necessarily haven't implemented anything around that in the first step is that data capture based on those specific elements that you want to measure? And from there, depending on what those elements are, the measurement process is a little bit different.

In every scenario, there will be some kind of confounding variables, for example, COVID, right. So looking at healthcare claims of last year, there's no way for you to segment out perfectly, but you should consider that as you think about, you know, the value you're getting from. And at the end of the day, you can measure programme success through these value on investment metrics. But we always talk about why are we doing these programmes, it's for the right reasons, it's for those employees, it's for those tenants.

So I would always encourage employers, and we have it built into our programme capturing the feedback of those participants, right, there's no version of our sick days dropped or healthcare costs drop, and then every employee hits the programme, that's not a successful programme, it really comes down to that. So in every scenario, you're capturing their feedback, you want to make sure what they're doing is fun, because if it's not, it's not sustainable. And you want to make sure you're really building a programme based on the needs and the wants of that audience.

Matt Morley

I like it. So it's a qualitative approach combined with some of the quantitative data to give you some some real, tangible feedback from from the front line, it strikes me a lot of what you're doing then is is in a sense about content creation. What's the strategy behind your content creation?

Nick Patel

Yep, so we work with a diverse population. So everything we're doing is effectively all of the above. And some companies webinars resonate really, really well. Other ones they don't, and just for cultural reasons, based on individual interests and needs, sometimes marketing issues. So our goal is to offer a diverse set of content. So just actual material and topics we cover and deliver that in a diverse way, in terms of different media types, articles, video content, long form material, short form material, things like that.

The one thing I'll say, just as like a business founder is I never thought that we would be as much in the content game as we are now. I just mean, looking back on it, it seemed pretty obvious, but it never occurred to me, we have a very large content team. And they're very busy! And so when we think about content, we think about the combination of two factors, one, responding to demand.

So there's demand for greater mental health resources and things like that we need to respond to those areas. And we're consciously doing that. And we're going to do that in different formats. I think what's tricky is we often are seen as a thought leader, by our clients we're trying to be so I guess it's no surprise there. And so when that perspective is put in, we're being asked to think about the future in a way they have not.

So for us, no one ever asked us to create content, on the health benefits of gratitude for example, the health benefits of finding purpose in your life, or the science of happiness, but we did it. Those are all things that conceptually when you talk to an employer or property and say, hey, these are things are really important. Have you considered to incorporate that your wellness programme and we show all the data around that tie it to, you know, health benefits and well being? They jump on it quickly, but there's something no one ever demanded.

So when you go talk to most employers, they're asking us to do fiscal activity programmes and nutrition programmes. Obviously, we need those some groups now asking for mental health and financial well being, but we cover so many dimensions of health and well being and educating those employers on why those dimension are important, is critical. And then, you know, identifying where those areas to invest in so that's what we spend a lot of time at The back to actually why we formed Wellable is supposed to be this thought engine for us, not just for our content creation, but also for just general topics in the HR and property management space.

The big thing we're working on now is, as I mentioned before, is diversity, equity inclusion. I don't know exactly what that means from a product perspective, or how we're gonna deliver that content. And we're still exploring it. But we know that it's critical to the future health and well being. And make sure we deliver that in a format that kind of impactful to our customers.

Matt Morley

I really encourage listeners to have a little dig around on your site, I found it really interesting and insightful to spend a little time Yeah, moving through the space that you've referred to the empty content that you provide online, as a way to see almost taking the temperature of what both you think is important and relevant, and presumably what what the world of work is asking for, in terms of relevant content. So just seeing the diversity of the articles and the headlines out there was was a real eye opener for me. It's, it's been fascinating. Thank you so much for your time, you've got a really exciting future ahead. So I wish you the very best of luck. How can people reach out Connect, follow along, see what you're up to?

Nick Patel

Yeah, absolutely. If you have any questions, you want to connect me directly my emails just Nick @ wellable.co but a great place to start is of course our website www.wellable.co where you can check out our blog, definitely subscribe to it. I think a couple years ago, we won our award for the best wellness blog, we continue to produce a lot of interesting content there. So if you're just broadly interested in health and wellbeing as your HR person or property person or whoever it may be, it's a great way to get different pieces of content on current issues, emerging issues, and really the future of health and well being at the enterprise level.

Matt Morley

Awesome. Thanks again Nick. It's been great.

Health by Design - Green & Healthy Places 029

The ‘Green & Healthy Places’ podcast series takes a deep-dive into the role of sustainability, wellbeing and community in office real estate, residential property, hotels and educational facilities today.

This is episode 29 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast in which we discuss wellbeing and sustainability in the built environment. 

I’m your host, Matt Morley, Founder of Biofilico wellbeing design and Biofit health and fitness.

Today we’re in Vancouver, Canada talking to Ror Alexander, an integrative health expert with a strong Eastern influence to his philosophy.

Our conversation covers:

• Environmental psychology 

• The connections between Feng shui, modern health sciences and biohacking

• Organizing a healthy home

• Detoxifying your home environment

• defining an intention and energy level for different rooms in a house

• Hacking the home office for productivity

• His tips on Essential oil aromatherapy 

• And the ancient history of healthy buildings

• Active vs Passive physical activity

• Biophilic design

• Building biology

https://www.roralexander.com/

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Health By Design podcast

FULL. TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI (excuse typos)

Matt Morley

Ror to talk once again, it's been a year since we last spoke, I would really like to start with your interpretation of what you do where you're at And how you you contribute to this world of green and Healthy Places from your base in Vancouver, Canada.

Ror Alexander

Well basically what I do is I come from a, what I call Integrative Health, health and weight loss is always the key when it comes to health nowadays, if you can lose weight in any healthy way it's good no matter what diet you're on, but I go past just weight loss like weight loss is great but you know, I really liked I have a saying my other slogan is live stronger, longer and better. And that's kind of the way I follow with my coaching stronger is saying Okay, muscle is the organ of longevity, So, if we get stronger first, which is your more traditional nutrition and fitness and then we go into the longer which is getting more into the micro nutrition, some of the more interesting aspects the little more less well known aspects and then the better is obviously like you will talk about travel or bettering your career or bettering passion so all that sort of stuff so I come at health from a very broad point of view but in phases not to overwhelm people.

Healthy indoor environments and feng shui

The environment is a big part of that so I have my what I call my bag of health which is from Fung Shui which is your eight areas of health because it just happened my eight areas and Fung Shui before I even learned about it almost match but what I don't have really described on my website very good yet is the border around that that Gula is actually your environment. So the way it works is your environment is on the outside pushes in towards the inside and that center square is your health so that's why I look at it like a kind of phasing in

Matt Morley

you mentioned the idea of how you independently developed your thinking and if you want to call it your value system your philosophy and then you found that actually correlated with a far more far wider system around finish rate reminds me I had a similar experience with this whole sort of biophilic design stuff I was just digging around and how you could bring that outside well then and then suddenly you stumble across a term that opens up a whole world to you and you're like oh well okay, it's exactly what I've been talking about and thinking about but someone's already defined it so but what led you towards Fung Shui in the first place?

Ror Alexander

So like I know you had time in Asia would it was that some formative in that process for you? Yeah, I mean, I took I took psychology in school and I was always interested in kind of East I took the I started took a few classes on like Eastern religions and stuff like that so I was always kind of interested in it. And then I went off to Asia and I lived in Hong Kong in the beginning and Hong Kong is you know, it's a mecca for Fung Shui architecture. So this started goofing around and learning a little bit about it on my YouTube channel I have you know, a Fung Shui tour I do where I take you in I kind of show you the interesting Fung Shui aspects. But yeah, just it was really just more like just kind of fun. I liked learning about temples and I kind of like the psychology and so I just started reading about environmental psychology and how the environment affects us. And it just kept leading me to feng shui and feng shui. And then from Feng Shui, I started to learn about fosu, which is the traditional Indian version.

So Vastu actually came first I found out and then from Shrek, and almost everything came from India, almost all knowledge at the end of the day really came from ancient ancient India, and then Ancient Greece, but even ancient India before that, and then spread especially in Eastern philosophy, right? So it's spread up into, you know, up into Thailand, and then it's spread up into China.

So Chinese medicine is actually based on IR VEDA Thai massage, Thai Yoga is based all the yoga is Tai Chi and Qi Gong all that all comes from yoga, but getting off track but yeah, that's that's how I can I started learning about Fung Shui in in Hong Kong, and then I just continued learning about it. I bought some books on it, a couple courses on it, I got a chance to interview a really, really cool contemporary Fung Shui master on a trip to Hong Kong and write that I really liked her take on it because her take was a very modern take.

She comes from it for a little more from a relationship background, or I just noticed right away what I really noticed was Fung Shui had so many connections with modern Health Sciences. It's just the terminology was very different. Like I remember the first time I was on my very first day I arrived in Hong Kong a friend pick me up and we were driving through an area called Stanley which is kind of like their beach area. And he said, Do you know why these buildings have these big wind big spaces in them? And I said, No, no idea why there's a hole was in the middle of a building. And he said that for the dragons to pass through. And I was like, Alright, Game of Thrones here, whatever. But the dragons represented ci, which represented the winners represented air.

So what actually will happen these buildings a lot is the air circulation will be placed into the sword allows the air to circulate more through the building, I was like, Well, that makes sense. Coming from a health point of view, it makes sense to have the clean air and have this kind of gap in the middle of the building, where there could flow through better for the ventilation.

So that's kind of where it came from. And then like I said, I traveled India learnable best do happen to know, there's only about 10 books that I know of read really written on the topic and I happen to be friends with one of the authors of that. So that was really interesting say that his Ayurvedic roots retreat in India had him on my podcast, you know, and talk to him about vasthu because just yeah, so it's just very interesting how these ancient traditions and what we call modern health or even biohacking, a lot of them are the same related just different topics like the dip, we talked about them in different permutations.

Matt Morley

I think something about fundamental truths that many of us get to from different angles at different times of our lives. But we often seem to join similar concepts, I’m reading a book at the moment called the Barefoot architect, it's all about more of an ancestral health approach to to how you would design homes and whether you call them dragons, or you call them ventilation courtyards or what have you. But again, you're getting to the same concepts, right? So I know that you're thinking when when you describe your relationship around functional functional now you have your sort of four pillars organization, detoxification, intention and optimization. So how does that how does that work in terms of your your advisory to a client or to an individual?

Environmental Psychology and a healthy home

Ror Alexander

Well, yes, functional like Feng Shui, you know, a lot of it is it's a lot of, you know, you hear a lot of people say, oh, Fung Shui is crap, there's nothing, it's all superstition, I'm like, well, you don't really understand it. And what really what it is, it is an art, it's also a science, but it's a lot of it's about psychology. And the way it's about organizing your home, so it affects you in a positive way, whether it's psychology or psychically, or, you know, physically. So the way I describe it to clients is I termed I try not to use the term feng shui a lot when I'm talking to people, but I'll just talk about healthy home design. And so the very first one is the organization. And I think, you know, any, any book any women's health, everybody talks about decluttering.

But there's truth behind it. decluttering, organizing house, arranging things, getting rid of the crap, getting rid of broken things. Like, you know, psychology tells us that when we have a desk that's all cluttered, our eyes are constantly scanning, and it's a little bit harder to stay on focus. So by straightening things up and minimizing your area, it just allows you to stay on target a little better, helps you to keep your attention. I mean, I think that everybody's had that you walk into a really messy, overwhelming room, your just senses are overwhelmed.

Organizing a healthy home

So the first step is very easy. And that's just organization, then from there, you can once it's organized, and you got it, you know, things lined up, you got your books stacked up, then you go through it. I don't really like the term mineralization. But I'm a bit of a minimalist, but things that either bring you function. So like you have cooking tools that you really need things that help your life be better, or things that bring you joy, or getting rid of things that bring you negativity, for instance, you've got something broken, you just never get around to throwing it away or fixing it. But it's always kind of bothering you, oh, there's a broken blank lampshade over there, that broken thing.

Or maybe it's something that maybe not a great relationship a breakup had, and you're kind of keeping something that was given to you from guilts. But you don't like it. And you're thinking, I really don't like that. But you know, grandma died, and she gave it to me, I feel bad for getting rid of it. So that's where the organization sort of part fits in. From there, you move on to what I call forget the terms. From there, we move on to the detoxification. And literally that is it.

Detoxing your home environment

That is just detoxing your environment mostly. And I'm talking about that from a mostly from a chemical point of view. So that is getting rid of any harsh sense, harsh odors, anything that could potentially have some negative effects on you breathing wise or food wise. So that is just again, that's the more the physical side, right.

The first part was kind of the psychological side, the second part, the fiscal side, because we're learning more and more about how so many man made and I'm not anti manmade things, obviously at all, but there's a lot of things that are just not that great for us when it comes to health wise. So one of the things things I do is I just detox the house and I say you know if you can't eat with it, or like you couldn't put it in your mouth, you probably shouldn't be cleaning with it.

So if you got little kids, right, they put it on, they get it on their hands, they put it in their mouth. So things like Lysol. Things like these really harsh antibacterials. I mean, they can affect your gut biome. Studies have shown that kids who come from homes that use green cleaners tend to weigh less than kids who come from homes that use heavy harsh chemicals. Right. But now people will make the argument well, is that because the house from the green cleaners, are they more concerned with healthy eating and getting their kids active period?

So is it causation or correlation? Well, we don't know exactly. But it looks like when they've done studies, the gut biomes of these kids are different and a lot of it has been related, or at least strongly possible to the things that they're cleaning their homes with. So for me, detoxification is an easy no brainer. Like for instance, I brought a few pieces here I can show you right, like we use a stripper trinket vinegar over Windex, right. It's just I want to put Windex in my mouth. Right. It's quiet. For soap. We use Dr. Bronner's Dr. Bronner's

Healthy cleaning techniques for the home

Yeah, I mean this is this the clean your dishes, although don't use it for dishes. I usually just buy a decent, like natural dish soap, but I mean, we use it I use it for shaving shampoo. Use it for I mean, this is everything in the kitchen. We all just use it since it does everything.

Now people say well, okay, well what if you need to not just, you know, you need to disinfect your house, you got to get bleach or you need like, Clorox I'm like no, I just, you know, hydrogen peroxide right there works, you know, works very good. And then that's just basic cleaning supplies, you can take it up a step. You know, like for sunblock, we use pretty much just a natural zinc sunblock.

So little things like that, that if it doesn't affect your life, really negatively when something like if it's going to create a major house in your life, get rid of it, then don't but if something simple like switching Windex for vinegar, switching a laundry soda for some crappy you know, for breezy laundry soap, you know, using essential oils for smells instead of like I said, Glade fresheners. To me, they're no brainers, so that's detoxification.

Healthy homes with an intention in each space

Then you move on to intention. And this, I kind of like this, every room in your home, whatever space you're in, has an intention. It has a purpose it's supposed to serve, right. So what's a bedroom supposed to do? supposed to help you you're supposed to sleep in your bedroom, you're supposed to be able to kind of relax and whine to shut down in your bedroom.

So that's what the bedrooms intention is, is a place to sleep. The kitchen has an intention of being a place where you go to get healthy, it's the number one key to health in your home is your kitchen, your social area, I mean that the term social is what it's intended to do.

So if you have the room set up where it's there's an antisocial not facing each other, whatever, then that's not going to work. So I look at I maximize the intention of every room. And then you can get into things like the colors you use the Yang, the Yang energy, that's just it's just just means does it have a powerful energy, like something that gets you excited, like an office should have Yang energy, right? focused, bright, organize your do your best thinking in there, it's not distracting.

At the same time, a bedroom has to have Yin energy, kind of that soft, relaxing energy, you don't want a bunch of bright colors in there, you don't want bright lights, because that doesn't. That's not the intention of that space. So what I do is I break it down into the the intention of different roofs. And then finally, we have what's called call optimization, which is kind of its its relates to the intention, but what it is, is, um, I'll give you an idea of the bedroom. Right? So what is this, these are the little tweaks we can do to add into the intention.

So in my bedroom, for instance, I use only light balls with no blue and no green spectrum in them. And you probably know why that is, but maybe your listeners don't blue in the green are the ones that wake up your brain, right. So you got all these LEDs, you got your CFL that affects your melatonin level. So if your bedroom is full of fluorescent lights, even just the CFL bulb while you're reading at night, that's not going to help you getting a good sleep, it's going to perhaps push your melatonin back, make it later you just get more sleep. So that's what optimization is and the different tweaks you can do in every room to optimize the intention of that room. So for

Healthy buildings and ancient traditions

Matt Morley

I’m involved in the sort of the healthy building movement and creating you know workplaces that are good for employee well being and ever Things like the well building certification. And there's so much of what you've just described that is actually at the core of a lot of what's going into a very scientific and detailed corporate level approach to kind of achieving the same things that you've just described that as I understand that have a sort of, you know, a pretty serious history behind them.

And yet, we're still to this day kind of, in a sense, reinventing them reef rebranding it all putting it out there as well with this is this is a well building standard. And look, we've not not come up with new ideas, maybe more research behind it, but the principles, the underlying principles, and they've got hundreds of years of history behind them, and that's what's hardly spoken about, it seems.

Ror Alexander

And that's what it is. It's just the principles. That's why when people say Fung Shui is crap, I had got an argument, the guidance from that, like, it's not crap, like, there's nothing crap about it. It was a system developed to just help you maximize your natural biological rhythms and your psychological energy.

Circadian rhythm lighting

It's as simple as that, you know, whatever they call it, you know, don't sleep under the moon, it just okay, well, that just means don't sleep on bright white light don't have a bunch of bright light because the light of the moon they would say, Oh, the later moon affects your sleep, oh, whatever.

Whoo, well, no, but they're, they didn't have light bulbs back then nowadays, they functionally masterfully say, you know, don't sleep under a CFL, it's probably not the best idea. And it was about living in circadian rhythms. They didn't have electricity back then. So it was about building your house that would face the sun.

So you got the heat of the sun and all that stuff. It was about even things like you'll hear about people like the different spaces and function a while was because back in the day, you would take your most valuable objects and you move them to the back of the house and hide them because it was the most secure place. You didn't put your valuables right, your, your front door, right.

Healthy home office design

Matt Morley

So and you mentioned the idea of, of an office space and how these principles can be applied to that I think there's been so much happening over the last year and a half around, breaking down that barrier between that used to be quite a clear dichotomy for many of us where we have a place where we live, where we where we sleep, we eat with our family.

And then there's another place where we go to do our work and might be a co working, it might be a corporate office or just some other space where we go to do that type of productivity. And then suddenly, we all found ourselves without that barrier where the distinction was just broken down. Suddenly home is also the office work comes home.

And how are you now thinking about the home office? Because in a sense, I think that seems to be here to stay. or many of us have discovered that there are some positives to it. So what's your take on that? How have you set up your home office and any tips and suggestions for people?

Ror Alexander

Yeah, well, I definitely have a home office and I probably broke one of the biggest, you know, classical Fung Shui nodos, which is having your office in your bedroom. There's nothing I could do. There's no other space in my house, right? I can't put on my kid's room. I'm lucky that living rooms already have a gym in the middle of my living room, which is already not the greatest spot in the world. I can't from I'm right now I'm in my kitchen.

My kitchen is kind of my second office. But what I did is what I did is this they what they do say is, you know in Fung Shui you always hear about cures, you hear the word cure, which I don't like the word cure, but what it just means is mitigations. And what I did in my office is I decorate it a little differently than the rest of the bedroom. It's on the far side of the bed, right? So it's on the complete furthest area, I could put it from the bed.

So I'm not staring directly at my desk when I'm sleeping. right because I don't want to monitor there just you don't want that. I do have it set off into the picture, My room is the right hand corner. So the window is to the left of me because I do like having a window, you really should have a window that you can see through.

You know, because you're working, you want to have a window that you can pick out of every now and then plus that light coming in is nice. You don't want to directly in front of you because then you can't see your screen. You don't want to behind you because you can get a glare again, fluctuate things will tell you this too, but it's just common knowledge is kind of funny, too.

So there's the office, sorry, there's the life, the desk and then I paint the walls differently around my desk so they're painted in right now there are cream color, which actually came with the house and the bedroom is white. The walls are cream but they're eventually going to be gray. So I'm planning on doing like a light gray around the office to give that space a slightly separate feel.

The decor in the office is a little bit different than the rest of the bedroom to now something I've been toying with the idea of getting is you know, one of those Japanese dividers and all those wall dividers they sell them at IKEA and stuff you can put it up a sort of separate room. Again, just my room isn't really quite big enough.

Standing desks for a healthy office set-up

I think that would kind of get in the way and being more annoying. So what I've done is I've just put the office you know facing away from the bed facing out a window kept the decor different and kept This slightly different color scheme on it. And then again, I've used optimization tools around my office. So I have a standing desk, which I basically tell my coaching clients they have to get, I don't say you have to get a an expensive one like I got, I got a digital one, you know, you press the buttons up and down.

When I lived in Thailand, I lived in Thailand for years. I mean, I knew the importance of standing desks. Well, going back 20 years, I've probably always kind of used a standing area. So in Thailand, I just had a regular table and I put a box on top and I just had my laptop there and a mouse keyboard. Now somebody it doesn't have to be expensive.

They have desk converters now, but anyway, standing desk is a must for me, I have a couple little tools that I use, I can do some exercises with when I'm at my desk. And this isn't sweaty, I'm not trying like skinny on a sweat one. I'm working because you know, I don't want to do that. But things I can do some postural exercises, I have a barstool that adjusts different heights.

So I could sit on and put my foot up. So you kind of get those different movements, I've learned to do a few different stretches I can do at my standing desk, and I will put it down to sitting. Because there's a thing too, you don't want to just be standing in one position all day, just really standing in one position is not a heck of a lot better than sitting in one position, you're just moving the pain and there are the issues down the road from your back to your knees.

And then you got to look at you know, other things. And this rise screwed up a lot, actually, for years. Luckily, it was I caught it early enough but not having the screen set up to eye height. So I'd be working on a bar desk, for instance, but my head would be down.

Nowadays, our heads are always down because the phone then got your computer screen down too. So at the end of the day, it always kind of like this, you know, even though you're using a standing desk that you're supposed to your network the store. Now I got everything optimized. So it's all the perfect heights ergonomics I've learned a lot about.

So I would definitely say learn about ergonomics. And for regular chair, I just use a Swiss ball, I have a Swiss ball that I sit on, instead of just a regular seat. So my standing my desk and I'm buying for hours. It forces me though, to move a lot. So I have a timer set up to sometimes so every 30 minutes and I got to watch nowadays that reminds me, but before that I would set a timer for 30 minutes or an hour and it would buzz and Okay, kind of move it down, but it's time to move it up.

Aromatherapy for productivity and focus

So just few little things that I've done in my office and that essential oil, I keep them a very scientifically purchased essential oils at my desk, which is largely peppermint, I use a lot of peppermint oil on my desk because peppermints been shown to actually wake you up and help you focus. I'll also use Cypress there I like to have for smells a lot of you know biophilic design I'm a huge fan of I got it's like 10 drops a Cypress I think only one or two drops of patchouli too much actually start to smell like a hippie, you know, but but Julie I like it because it does have that moss scent when you walk into a forest.

And then usually a dropper to a peppermint in there as well. You know, the Cypress has been shown even to help rate boost your immune system help boost focus, but at the same time, it's not a stressful focus. It's not like it's the smell stress you out, you know, Cypress and forest bathing, you know, shinrin rokeya it's calming, it's calming and clarity at the same time. It's very interesting.

Matt Morley

I like your approach to creating an experience , thinking about the light, where how you're, you're physically interacting with your your workspace, the sense around you. And a lot of that stuff that I've applied to gyms in the past and you mentioned the gym, so I've got to go there. I'm interested to dig into this topic that you you've described elsewhere around, I think you use the terms of conscious deliberate exercise and then passive movements. So not everyone's necessarily thinking about movement in those terms. But from your perspective, how are you distinguishing between those two concepts?

Conscious exercise for health

Ror Alexander

Yeah, so it comes down to what they call NEET, which means non exercise activity thermogenesis. People don't think about that a lot. And you know, when you think about burning calories, so what's the first thing people think about burning calories, I think go to the gym. Right? It's always go to the gym, go to the gym exercise. Well, even the most hardcore workout.

At the end of the day, if you were to measure all your calories, your basal metabolic rate burns the most that's your brain, your breathing, you know, all that sort of just being alive is about 60% of your calorie use in a day. T

he next biggest one after that is neat or non exercise activity thermogenesis So you notice I'm a hand talker, I talk a lot with my hands. That that's a that's neat. That is anything where I'm moving on. But I'm not, I'm not sweating. This is at heart. And then after that you got exercise the thermogenic effect of food. Well, for me focused exercise means that's exactly what it is I separate between movement or what I call physical activity and exercise.

Exercise, to me focused exercise means I'm going in there either putting a load on my muscular skeletal system, an outside load, or perhaps I'm putting myself into a position where there's extra load on, you know, doing a push up, for instance, right, there's gonna be extra load on my chest that's normally not there, or there's a load and or I should say, stress on the heart and the lungs, right, your heart rates going up, because you're taking it out of that typical standing and sitting zone. So that is what I call active exercise. And it's important, it is very important, you know, but that neat, that non exercise activity thermogenesis that passive movement, that movement without sweating is so important, it can burn between 15 to 30% of your calories a day.

And it's so easy to make that closer to that, you know, 30%, and that 15% by doing simple things like using a standing desk, creating environments that just force you to move more passively, you don't even think about it, one of the simplest descriptions I get is, if you were to go into a room that had only standing desks, well, you're gonna stand, no option, if you go into a room that has no furniture, you're gonna sit on the floor, there's no choice, right and sitting on the floor is not overly comfortable. So you're going to be moving around a lot.

Passive vs Active movement training

So I always talk about designing spaces is particularly your home to really force passive health on you. And one of the aspects is passive movement. So that's what that like that Swiss ball, like I said, my office core, you're constantly moving on it, you don't just sit it's not a lazy boy standing up. So those are just, it's just two really great movements. So that's the way I separate them, there's that low level movement that and I call it passive, because you're not thinking about it, it's just your environment is forcing you to do it. And then there's Oh, I'm gonna go to the gym. And I'm gonna, and I have my weights worked out. And I know exactly what I'm going to be doing and counting my steps and reps and counting my load.

Matt Morley

I like I like the idea of having a combination of some degree of willpower to make that happen to get your sort of low level movement during the day, but also more of a systems approach. So take the desk and the low chair away and replace it with an alternative. And then you're no longer relying on your, your own willpower, but the systems we put in place and boom, off you go, you can then you can scale it back,

Ror Alexander

right. It's all about the systems and having what I call it, there's a there's a movement right now called the no furniture movement. And I'm kind of a member of that movement. Mine's a little more low furniture for almost a year, my first year, year and a half, I moved back from Asia access and didn't really have any furniture even a floor just on the bed. Sorry, bed on the floor. Now I have a little more but even my furniture whenever I buy my furniture, I asked myself Hey, is this gonna make me like just zonk out it's like lazy boy for and binge on Netflix for hours.

There's not so the only two chairs we own or pop us on chairs, which are cool, because you can flip them up like a bowl, and they actually make great meditation seats too. And they're not. They're not uncomfortable, but they're not you can't sit in them for you know, three hours on end with, you know, for the most part, they're just not the most comfortable chairs in the world. But the wife likes and two from Thailand, you know, they're she's like, well, I grew up with these chairs. And I go, Well, you guys grew up with these chairs, and the guys are in much better long term health than we are. So lots of little secrets.

Matt Morley

I like you're quite far out there in terms of really pushing the message. So I appreciate that. And I've got a feeling I know what the answer to this question. This next one will be but your your take on EMF and what the risks are in from a sort of building biology perspective for people who aren't necessarily aware of the concept and where you stand on 5g, etc.

Building Biology

Ror Alexander

Yeah, um that's a hard because I think there's people that you know that people don't know the science really good, and they can explain this much better than I can. But in my coaching, I do have an option to work with a building biologist named Jason Messick, and he goes into your house and he primarily focuses on three things. The first one is your air quality. The second one is your water quality. And the third one, which honestly his biggest thing he focuses on is the EMF in your house. And I guess it comes down to the problem is when people think of emf they only think of Wi Fi. And yet there's you know, there's what he calls magnetic which is currency.

So there's magnetic fields that can affect you. There's the electric or the voltage fields that can affect you dirty electricity, which is Because Ken can kind of create some problems, it's like almost like pulses and surges. And then radio frequencies, which is, which is your Wi Fi and stuff like that. Obviously, you know, like, I got lights all around me, we all live in house with electricity. I'm not opposed to electricity. And but I think we, I think we should try to mitigate it when possible, you know, like, whether or not you want to go as far as not having any metal in your bed not having a springs in your bed, which I don't.

And there's some interesting research that shows that Hey, y'all thought that those all that wiring could attract and magnify fields? Other studies saying no, they don't they don't at all. Jason has said he's gone to places where he's held a compass up over the bed on the compass spins around, right? So there's a very strong magnetic field around that bed.

And depending it like it all comes down to what as Jason explains it, you've got the duration, so how long you're in, like how long you're in a space for, and the distance. And then there's the intensity? Right? So those are the three things I'll say to people.

Well, and people that would maybe have no problems with EMF, don't believe anything like that, you know, well, would you put your face right in front of your microwave while you're cooking the entire time? And most people will say no, most people would say, I don't say, Well, why if they're not, if they're not worried about it, then why wouldn't you have your face in front of the microwave? Good, because it just doesn't feel like a smart thing to do, does it? Whether or not, I don't know, I don't know. S

o I would have to say I am strongly concerned about EMF 5g, from what I understand it doesn't sound like it's super awesome for our health, I get it, you know, you got guys that are much better than me that I've interviewed, I can talk about how the pulses that can affect the calcium signaling between nerves. The blood brain permeability can be affected by strong EMF. So again, when it comes to me and my health coaching, I err on the side of caution, providing it doesn't interfere with your life to the point where it's going to cause stress on your life, if you got rid of it, because stress is one of the worst things we can do.

So if you're going to get if, if what I suggest to you is just like mass can be so hard, I can't and it's gonna bother you and be negative, then don't do it. But if you can try to cut down and think about your, you know, EMF overall, and I think having a building biologist come in is a good idea. I mean, I don't think it's a great idea to have your bed right behind a wall where your refrigerator is just going to create a strong magnetic field. And you know, there's quite a bit mood disorders, Melatonin is a big issue when it comes to Wi Fi signals, apparently. I guess I'm not the most professional, but I do err on the side of caution. I mentioned it to clients, and I gauge their interest.

And if they're interested, I'll have you know, on Sunday, set him up with a call with Jason or show him some videos I've done with Jason, and then I let them decide. But I really think it's a good idea to at least mitigate most of the problems if you can.

Matt Morley

Nice. I appreciate that. And and in terms of your thoughts, then sort of you bridge this gap between the world of like physical activity and physical work and training and the physical environment around us. And so within that framework, how do you think about rest and recovery when you're working with clients now? Like how big a role is that playing? Do you think you've seen perceptions of the importance of rest and recovery change over recent years? Are you still sort of trying to push that message? Is it still under appreciated?

Ror Alexander

It's it honestly it's still under appreciated? I think what happens even to me, it's just like, you know, to me, it's like we know about blue light and how it affects us. I mean, to me, it's a no brainer and But to this day, I don't think I've met a client yet that has any idea what I'm talking about. I think the problem is a lot of times we in people like me health coaches and people like you too

We probably get we kind of get caught in these circles where we'll listen to health podcasts will listen to biohacking podcast you know what listened to kind of fringe your stuff and and we hear from all these guys talking about you might have 20 different specialists talking about a blue light effects and we're like wow, it's becoming so common knowledge.

It's great, but it's not. It's like you go to the grocery store right now. everything we know about diets and nutrition you know everything we know go to the grocery store and I'll go to your local I don't want your big one is there in Spain or England whenever, you know for us, it's a superstore, Canadian superstore. Go to the superstore and watch what people are buying, and it's still Cheetos and Coca Cola is and just crap. So in small circles and biohacking circles, yeah, they're learning about stress but I would say for the majority of the population Fortunately, it's still not that we haven't been able to reach the masses yet. Little things like yoga has become more popular.

But even then we bastardize Yoga, in my opinion, to where we've just turned it into an exercise routine. It's not what real Yoga is supposed to be. So yes, I do discuss a lot about stress with my clients. Again, I come from a bit of a I liked the idea of meditation and breathing, but I don't use the word meditation very often, especially for guy clients. Just because meditation still, I mean, I was anti meditation really, and yoga, I thought it was so you know, the first, when I was back in the day, I was teaching CrossFit, like laughing at yoga people. And then I went to Indonesia, and we had a yoga class there. And I tried it a few times, and kind of just started to, I was so bad at it. I was like, I just wanted to get better at it.

But over the years is I learned more about yoga about meditation, I traveled to India a couple times. I was like, yeah, this is this is actually something we need. And I have ADHD, I'm kind of all over the place. And for me, just focusing on I don't even really want to say, um, I guess, I don't sit and meditate in with my legs crossed like this, you know, but I'm very aware of my breathing for me. So I've really, in the last few years really switched to focus on my nasal breathing.

So I'll teach clients about that. I find a lot of the people said that one of the problems I have with these meditation retreats and stuff is you go and people feel so Zen down and relax, and I feel great, I feel amazing. And within a month and back to the west, they're, you know, all stressed out again, and they forgot all their lessons. So I just prefer to come at it from what we can do in our day to day. And meditation is a great thing to work up to, but I call it breathing. So I'll talk about nasal breathing first and belly breathing after your workout. That's a big one.

I talked about just two to three minutes, that nasal breathing period, then I'll get into box breathing because it's a little more you know, because the Old Navy SEALs box breathe. Oh, okay, well, that must be good. It's really just a very westernized folk way of doing a meditation. So, but yes, I definitely stressed,

Matt Morley

it kind of brings us background to where we started, right? I mean, what's more elemental, and basic than breathing? And yet, how often do any of us really just take a moment, if it's a minute, or 10 minutes in the morning, or the last thing at night just to reconnect just to just to listen in and allow there to be some space in our minds not to plan or, or worry, or, you know, relive some moment of the day or sort of anticipate what might happen later in the day and just connecting with the breath. Really, it doesn't need to be anything spiritual.

Ror Alexander

No, not at all. And if you can design like I taught, one of the things I talk about a lot is designing Zen zone in your house, which again, comes from I've been very influenced by Eastern traditions, I think I sent you a picture of my kid in our Zen zone. So it's, it's pretty cool. It's a Papa Sancerre. And we got this cool light that hangs over top of it, which we use at nighttime, because that's in our living room, all of our house has special lighting, so it has circadian lighting the entire house. So at 7pm, the house goes all the blinds come down, and then the house switches to those non blue and green spectrum blocks the entire thing. Because there's no point having it if you're just gonna switch on your kitchen light, you know, ruin your melatonin again. But the Zen zone, you know, mine's very Eastern based, we got some cool stuff we have from Thailand, and I got some fun stuff from Hong Kong and stuff around it. But it doesn't have to be. It can be, it can be really simple. A few cushions on the floor doesn't even have to be a cushion on the floor. It could be a lazy, it could be anything you want.

But it's a space where you go to purposely recharge and get a few minutes a meet time. But again, it's not something I say to a client, Oh, great, you want to lose 10 pounds, we got to build you a meditation space. It's something that I'll work towards down the road. I think that's based in India, it's called a puja room. It's a prayer space on all Eastern cultures, that spiritual zone is a part of your home. And it's a part that we're severely missing here. And it's not vague. It could be a meter by a meter. It's not a big space. So I'm not saying you need to

Matt Morley

love it. Thanks, man. It's been really interesting to get your take with a slight sort of Eastern twist on a lot of themes that even for myself, I kind of, yeah, you get you get focused in your own world. And sometimes you need a little bit of, you know, fresh, a fresh angle, a fresh perspective on things. It's really, it's really just reiterated how much of this is just part of a fundamental connection between us and the natural world and the terminology, the descriptions and their histories and traditions behind it can, you know, we can come at that from many different angles, but ultimately, it all comes back to the same ideas and I think you've really encapsulated that.

Biophilic Design

Ror Alexander

And then biophilia designs a big part of it. You know, I got in my living room is I got a green wall. I see you got one to your right hand side there. I think I got biophilic wall in my office. I got a biophilic wall. We got plants Going up the ying yang and we want to get more plants. But yeah, I mean, nature is a huge element of it. And then Fung Shui always talked about nature too, right? It always talked about the importance in nature, when you look at, like you talked earlier about, it was like, you know, you look at all the old Buddhist temples, they'd always have a courtyard in the middle, you know, you look at and you want to take that to the most modern, crazy extreme Singapore like Singapore's airport, a vortex waterfall to create negative ions and a jungle.

I mean, Singapore, that's where I got really interested in biophilic design was visiting Singapore, I mean, that place if you're going to look at a place this is, what is the poster child for modern and biophilic design, and they've put it together and they've done it on purpose. I mean, so the biophilic design, I think it's just a huge aspect. That's so important. So I really try to get people into biophilia as much as I can you know, even if even if it's a fake green wall it's still better I mean, how they shouldn't just pictures of nature can make people feel better so that gets us that's what a pitcher can do. Just imagine what real plants can do and then to the level you can take it to

Matt Morley

and with your and I noticed you've got lots of fresh herbs it looks like in the background there in your in your kitchen which is another one because they adding a runner and scent right and it's sort of doubling

Ror Alexander

we got that we got basil going on here I got sprouts growing you know we got the whole thing and that's part of the nourishing kitchen you know I got a clean green clean nourishing kitchen you know where it's again it's just talking about natural cleaners I've talked about and then having clean Whole Foods not junk foods and then obviously nourishment is that whole thing for together I you might have a kitchen that inspires you to eat healthy, not stinky, bright organize, we got you know, one of the things in the in the Blue Zones, right they have fruit bowls and table under the ours is empty right now, we do have three fruit bowls behind it, but we just ran out of bananas today. Our good fruits are always on display and the crappy foods are either not in the house or they're hiding pretty good. So get just more little tip. So lots of tips. Love it.

Matt Morley

Yeah, the basic common sense, but it just it's so helpful to be reminded then it can seem so that immediately makes complete sense to me. But you think Well, yeah, things on display. Are they hidden away in the fridge? Okay, well, maybe I could just bring them out of there and have them visible in the kitchen and that would have an impact on on my mother.

Ror Alexander

I have Oreos out here. If I see him. I'm like, it's true. It's true if I so I got a little junk food that I do keep on displays my dark chocolate covered almonds. And I even need more of those than I really should. But you're

Matt Morley

gonna hide them away somewhere in the corner. Right. That's it. Thanks so much, man. So listen, where can people find you? What's the best way to keep in touch? I know you have your own podcast, your YouTube channel. Yep, well,

Ror Alexander

there's a couple. Like I said, my own health podcast is health by design, which they can check that out. And then YouTube, it's just almost everything for me is Ror Alexander a rural and that's just our model line. So raw Alexander, you know, find me on Instagram, Facebook's probably my best one. I tend to deal with an older audience, you know, like mid 30s 40s 50s. So Facebook still the place.

I do have a tick tock but I don't understand that one. really bother much with that. But my main place I like the best because I kind of host everything there is my website, which is again, just raw alexander.com and then you can link to everything from there. It's my resource for everything. Blogs video,

Sustainable Yachting BioBlu - Project BIO concept yacht

BioBlu Sustainable Yachting and Onital Studio unveil concept designs for Project BIO 40m concept yacht

What is BioBlu sustainable yachting?

BioBlu offers a reinterpretation of yachting’s relationship with People and Planet, owner and ocean, by placing a respect for nature at the core of their activities. 

Focused on enhancing the onboard health and wellness experience for the owner and guests whilst considering a yacht’s environmental impact on the seas it calls home, BioBlu’s team provide a range of innovative solutions to yacht brands, owners and captains.

BioBlu’s services reflect the team’s backgrounds in sustainability and wellbeing, yacht design and refit project management. Together they advise on reducing yacht carbon emissions and energy consumption, improving indoor air quality, managing onboard waste, prioritizing healthy, sustainable materials and biophilic design for yacht interiors.

Project BIO 40m sustainable yachting concept

The Project BIO 40 meter displacement yacht is the synthesis of BioBlu’s philosophy, one that is in harmony with Onital Studio who joined the team to lead the yacht design process.

We gave considerable weight to concerns around onboard health and wellbeing in this project, balanced with responsible yacht design and environmentally conscious operational practices. As such, the BIO Project 40 meter is a collaborative expression of BioBlu and Onital’s shared vision and values.

BioBlu

BIO yacht concept

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others” (Jonathan Swift)

Project BIO – Build (B) Interiors (I) Operations (O) - aims to enhance the mental and physical health benefits of life at sea for an owner and guests whilst also considering the impact of a yacht on the life of those seas for future generations.

This symbiotic approach of balancing People and Planet, reducing a yacht’s environmental impact on one hand and enhancing its health and wellbeing features on the other, starts in the pre-design phase of a build and continues through into the interiors and operations, with BioBlu playing an integral project management role to ensure the yacht’s unique DNA is present at every point in the development process.

Aesthetically, our design is strongly influenced by the automotive and wellness architecture industries, both leaders in the sourcing and application of sustainable materials. It expresses a streamlined dynamism without compromising the wellness living concept developed by BioBlu Sustainable Yachting.

Onital Studio

Sustainable Yachting Concept / Build - collaboration with Initial Studio

The BioBlu team had previous experience developing new yacht concepts together; in this case, the motto of “form follows performance” quickly became central to the project, alongside a focus on sustainability from construction through to the yacht’s end of life, and natural aesthetics for their innate elegance.

Together, these three elements resulted in a design that suggests a new twist on the owner-yacht relationship, as well as the relationship between yacht and sea.

Design highlights include a second bridge with a ‘floating loft’ almost entirely glass-walled with panoramic views of the sea and a transformable stern area used as a beach club, drinks terrace or dining space, according to requirements.

Extendable terraces can add volume to the external bridges or indeed to the cabins, according to the client’s brief in the design phase.

Abundant natural light throughout the yacht combines with smart lighting systems that follow the body’s Circadian Rhythm and high-grade glazing, shielding the owner both the sun’s rays and electromagnetic fields (EMF).

‘Green tech’ onboard comes in the form of solar panels and hydrogen generators combined with hybrid propulsion systems that currently represent the best option for reducing carbon emissions.

Sustainable Yachting Concept / Interiors - wellbeing and sustainability

A panoramic owner’s suite has been conceived as the ideal cocoon for mental and physical rest and recovery. A connection to nature is provided via views of the night sky above while reclining on a coconut fibre mattress and organic linen sheets positioned on deep-pile carpets containing upcycled ocean plastic yarn. 

A wellbeing area provides both indoor and outdoor exercise spaces with eco-friendly equipment made of sustainably sourced wood and cork. 

Biophilic design features such as recycled teak decking, decorative wall panels made of algae, and air-purifying, non-toxic paint in a palette of soothing natural colors helps to bring the outside world in, promoting feelings of vitality.

Similarly, an office area uses the latest wellbeing interior design principles such as air quality monitors, healthy furniture fabrics, a sit-stand workstation and a nature-inspired art installation to improve concentration levels.

Sustainable Yachting Concept / Operations - systems and procedures

BioBlu looks to roll its concept out not just into a yacht’s Build and Interiors but also into the onboard Operations, again balancing concerns for wellbeing and the environment. 

This equates to an initial focus on onboard systems related to water, waste and air: an advanced water ionization and filtration  system; high-grade air purification filters and high-performance marine waste vacuum system with hygiene filters respectively, all equate to valuable additions from an onboard operations perspective.  

Hygiene and cleaning have never been more important than they are today, so ensuring eco-friendly, non-toxic cleaning materials; anti-microbial treatments on all steel panels and the use of sanitizing UV-C lights reflect BioBlu’s pragmatic philosophy of ‘marginal gains’ in action. 

Similarly, there is no easy path towards full ‘plastic-free yacht operations’ status but Project BIO aims to show what is possible in the short-term by implementing a green procurement policy for the yacht crew to follow as well as supplying natural, marine-based bathroom amenities in reusable bottles to further reduce plastic waste, amongst other details.

Globally recognized third-party certifications are likely to play an increasingly important role in the transition to a sustainable yachting sector, so the BIO yacht has aligned with RESET AIR for indoor air quality, the Clear Ocean Pact for reducing single-use plastics onboard and Yacht Carbon Offset for carbon offsetting.

About Sustainable Yachting BioBlu

BioBlu was Co-founded in 2021 by Matt Morley and Paolo Bonaveri to provide wellbeing design and sustainability consultancy services to the yacht industry. Together with Andrea Veneziani as Head of Engineering, they provide solutions for a greener, healthier and more responsible yachting sector to yacht builders, brands, owners and captains.

www.sustainableyachtingbioblu.com

About Onital Studio

Onital Studio embraces the areas of transportation and industrial design. Applying the scrum work concept, it is composed of multicultural designers working in network from all over the world, sharing their professional expertise, bringing their own skills, culture and experience. This different approach of a design studio has allowed us to be responsive, adaptive, lean and efficient, in line with our modern world.

www.onital.studio.com

workplace wellbeing with wellwise in the UAE

The ‘Green & Healthy Places’ podcast series takes a deep-dive into the role of sustainability, wellbeing and community in office real estate, residential property, hotels and educational facilities today.

Episode 28 takes us to Dubai talking to Bobbi Hartshorne, Co-Founder and Chief Wellbeing Officer at WellWise, a UK and UAE based business that takes an integrated diagnostics approach to delivering value via office wellbeing programs for corporations large and small.

Our conversation covers: 

• Bobbi’s experience creating a framework for student wellbeing via an innovative accommodation offer

• WellWise’s Research driven diagnostic system approach to workplace wellbeing

• their Employee engagement process to build a culture around wellbeing

• their network of specialists providing bespoke solutions covering everything from sleep quality, to office design and environmental health

• the growing importance of mental health support at work

• the subtle but important difference between wellness and wellbeing

• the opportunities in the UAE market for workplace wellness

Workplace wellbeing insights from our conversation

Workplace wellbeing improves almost anything that a CEO cares about ,from productivity to engagement, job satisfaction and creativity

organizations with high workplace wellbeing have 2% - 3% better performance on the stock market, better customer loyalty, and better sales performance

when you have a high wellbeing workforce, everything else tends to fall into place

in order to attract people back to these places we call offices, we're having to get very creative about what they look like, how they serve us, what function they fulfill and how they enable success

wellbeing has a broader and deeper meaning than wellness as it incorporates life satisfaction, accomplishment, motivation, purpose, engagement

GUEST / Bobbi  Hartshorne of WellWise Workplace Wellbeing UAE Dubai

• https://www.bewellwise.com/

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/bewellwise/

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbihartshornewellbeing/

HOST / Matt Morley - wellbeing champion Espana Spain

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattmorleylux/

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI - EXCUSE TYPOS!

Matt Morley

Okay, let's do this. If I may, I'm going to start by going back in time a little bit, because something came out of your CV as I was doing my research for this conversation. And it's a, it's a sector that seems to be really going through a transformation at the moment. I know it's no longer what you do. But I did want to just pick your brains a little bit on the student accommodation space. And you had a role a set of well being for global student accommodation group. And really the retargeting generation said, as I see it, and it's a dynamic sector. So you're combining wellness with student accommodation? Like what did that give you? And how did that go on to influence where you are today running various workplace wellness businesses?

Bobbi Hartshorne

Yeah. Well, it was a really interesting journey. The thing about that role at GSA was that I created it for myself. And so it was really the first of its kind in the private built student accommodation environment, although there had been similar roles in universities. And so it was a very steep learning curve. And it was really in response to a growing concern about the well being of students and the types of issues that were increasingly coming up in our residences, but also just around universities in general.

Bobbi Hartshorne

what I learned was that, for students, wellbeing was relatively universal. There were nine key areas that we were finding were the constant sources of stress or the opportunities to improve wellbeing. And they were financial, cultural, physical, mental, academic, spiritual, career and environmental. And it was this extreme change and this transition that young people are going through when they go from university, or when they go from school into university, that really creates this instability, where stress and low well being and challenges can fester.

Bobbi Hartshorne

the degree to which an individual has the ability to cope with those to address them, to reduce them varies massively depending on who they are, where they come from, what experiences they've had in the past. And so whilst we were able to build a framework for wellbeing that was fairly consistent across the world, how each individual student engaged with that or benefited from it really did vary. And there was certainly no one size fits all.

Bobbi Hartshorne

it dawned on me that these young people who were really quite different to the types of students that we'd had previously sort of the millennials, and the way they behaved and what they valued, and what got them motivated, and what stressed them was very different. And it dawned on me that those young people were going to enter the workforce, and that they were going to present so interesting and new challenges to employers, in the same way that they had presented new and interesting challenges to the student accommodation sector. And so I got really into looking at that transition, again, that vulnerable period of transition out of university and into the workplace. And I started to look at how existing working practices were maybe not going to align particularly well with this new generation, and maybe some of the challenges that were going to crop up.

Bobbi Hartshorne

And it wasn't long before we started to see burnout in mid 20 year olds, who had been in the workplace less than 10 years. It wasn't long before we started to see employers very concerned about mental health issues for younger employees, and a real change in pattern in terms of what those young employees were seeking from their employers. And it was way beyond cash, it just was so much more than financial gain. And so this is really where my interest in the workplace began. And then COVID cropped around the corner, gave us all a bit of a fright. And that was really an interesting experience because putting a workplace under an exceptionally extreme set of circumstances like COVID. And you tend to bring out either the best or the worst or a mixture of both. And so I really then started to observe what happens in a workplace under extreme circumstances and what happens to employees and leaders and managers under extreme work, workplace environments. And so that really was what gave gave this sort of leeway for me to take the take the jump out of the student accommodation world and into the workplace world because There were a lot of similarities and crossovers that I could draw on. But there was also a whole world of stuff I was interested in that I wanted to explore further.

Matt Morley

So am I right in thinking then with the student accommodation, you were to use the terminology from the hotel world of you're dealing with hardware and software. So you're doing both with training , teaching the mental game, as well as the physical game. So the spaces in which the students were spending their time sleeping at night, but they also meant providing, if you'd like more operational solutions to keeping them sane and healthy and positive and upbeat, right?

Bobbi Hartshorne

Absolutely. And it's quite strange, actually, from the physical perspective because universities for a really long time have been doing a lot to support students across all of those pillars that I mentioned earlier. But the one area that always seem to be neglected, or that was never really optimized was the accommodation, whether that was University owned accommodation, or whether it was privately owned accommodation. And it struck me that the nature of your home is the place where you're going to be engaging with your personal studies where you're going to have your downtime, where you're going to be maybe alone in your room, are the times when the challenges are probably going to rear their ugly heads. And, and it was really important for us to make sure that our teams on in the residences knew how to support students in that environment. But increasingly, that as we were upgrading residences, as we were building new residences, how we laid those structures out how we built community, how we identified whether students were isolated or behaving differently to maybe their normal patterns, that all became part of it. So yeah, absolutely operational and physical,

Matt Morley

There seem to be just so many parallels between the two, if you were to switch out what you've just described in the last couple of minutes, but instead of describing students, we would describe the staff or employees. And in fact, a lot of those same issues can come up or have been coming up, especially over the last few years around stress and anxiety and what have you.

Matt Morley

So you then transition across into the next phase of your career, you moved to launch your own business in October 2020, the end surrender, and there you're focusing more as I understand it on sort of a consultancy role for workplace wellbeing, right?

Bobbi Hartshorne

Absolutely. It just felt like , my natural transition. And my passion had really gone into that space, not that I wasn't still passionate about the student space, but I felt like I'd done a huge amount in the student space and there were great people there who could carry that on and evolve it further

Bobbi Hartshorne

I moved into the workplace and how the parallels as you've already alluded to, could transition across. I could see in the same way as five years previously, I could see that the university sector was struggling with student wellbeing the exact same was happening now with employees, employers struggling with employee well being, I was also observing a lot of snake oil solutions, and a lot of well washing, we call it and they're in your field, you have greenwashing. And this idea that it kind of wasn't very authentic that a lot of the work and practice going on in this space was at a very surface level, plaster over the cracks, put a nice picture on your website and kind of say that you're doing well being but as time went on, it became very apparent to organisations that that really wasn't enough. And it wasn't getting to the heart of the actual challenges and unpacking and really helping them to address the impact that a poor wellbeing workforce creates for an for an organization. And that was really where I wanted to step in with a much more rigorous and, I guess, scientific approach to wellbeing. But I was held back in doing that because what I didn't have that I wanted was a strong research platform. I kind of knew all the ingredients that were required through my own experience and through all the research I had done, but I wasn't able to get those articulated in a meaningful way because I didn't have a research platform. And so really not wanting to be just another snake oil charmer or just another well washer I set about trying to solve that riddle and now It was really when Tim Gatlin and worldwise came into the picture.

Matt Morley

I think it's a crucial point, because as you've suggested, typically, when going in on these projects, when there's there is a problem, by the time you get to the mechanic something's gone wrong with the car, so often by the time consultants brought in, right, if you've got people complaining, or the mood and the, the atmosphere in the office is really turned negative, or whatever it might be, something's going wrong here, I think it's quite rare that it's sort of anticipation, it anticipates, potential need, typically, you're kind of coming a little bit late to the game. So you have to deliver on the data and the numbers. And it's just, it's not enough to pen some nice words and hope everything works out. So you've then took this sort of far more data driven and research driven approach with Well, why so where you're currently clearly spending a lot of your time and energy and it looks to be an interesting new addition. So why don't we dig into that a little bit? So in terms of like, what that brings to the market and the needs that it's addressing? How are you resolving some of the issues that are out there at the moment?

Bobbi Hartshorne

So look, Tim, my business partner, Tim Gatlin, he already had a really, really strong research platform, that funny enough he was using in the student space, which is how Tim and I know each other, but he was also using it in other industries as well. And so I knew that that platform, and the strength of the tech involved in that platform was exactly what we were going to need to unpack the complexity of what we now call the workplace wellbeing network. And so we set about understanding, building on our knowledge, understanding what currently employers were purchasing in this space, what issues were they trying to target? What solutions were already on the market, what research was already out there, what questions were being asked. And we started to spot some key patterns. And these kind of worse split into they were either looking at what was happening with the employees themselves. So why are our employees not engaged? How do we build resilience? Why are our employees eating a terrible diet? Why are they not sleeping properly, or they would then look at organizational factors, although there was a lot less of that going on, but you would say, you know, is our management style appropriate for a modern workforce are our rewards and recognitions keeping up with the latest trends and desires of our employees. And so you have these kind of two sides of workplace wellbeing. But what you didn't really have was anybody who was working out how the two fit together, how they impacted one another, and where they could strengthen each other. And that was really what Tim and I were curious to see if we could create. And it turned out, we could so that was great.

Bobbi Hartshorne

In kind of talking to business leaders, we discovered three really important things. The first was the workplace wellbeing and employee wellbeing was top priority, or at least top five priority for every single business leader we spoke to. The second was that they were all completely overwhelmed by the amount of choice the amount of solutions, you might have conversation, the diversity of the discussion. And they were really struggling to navigate through to something that meant something to their own organization and their own situation. And the third thing was that a lot of them had already started and maybe even four or five years in have been investing in solutions and approaches and building teams and building structures around this stuff. But it wasn't actually really yielding what they kind of hoped. And so there was this kind of disillusionment or this paralysis happening where they were struck with this problem they just could not solve. And so after six months of research and diving into this topic, we've built a diagnostic system that brings those two factors together that organizational side and that employee side. And what we're able to offer organizations now is really comes down to clarity, being able to understand exactly what's happening in your organization, where the pain points are being created, where the challenges are arising from, and what the causation and outcomes of those are, what the cost of those are is to your organization, and then to help them to navigate through a strategic blueprint to a much more successful place to re redesign or redeploy their resources into the areas where it was going to have the most impact the quickest and then build from there. To where they wanted to go.

Matt Morley

Okay, and so you're beginning that process with a data collection phase. So presumably research and surveys, So you're getting both qualitative and quantitative data that gives you a baseline, right? And that forms part of the process or WISE process, as you call it, right? Where do you go on to?

Bobbi Hartshorne

Well, actually, there's a step before the data collection process, which we call the Y, phase for why. And really, this is this is often missing, as well, we discovered when we're doing our research is that quite often companies don't actually understand why it is that they're investing or think that they should be investing in workplace wellbeing. They they've either caught on to a trend, or they've spotted a specific issue such as engagement or resilience, or health, or they have a problem with something like productivity or engagement. And they go, Oh, well, wellbeing must be the answer. So because everybody's telling us that's the answer. But actually, when you start to talk to different employees across an organization, particularly at the senior level, you discover that there's actually quite a big difference in what they understand wellbeing is going to bring to the table, and some of them have got it, unfortunately, quite wrong. And some of them have got it right. But it's not aligned to their colleagues.

Bobbi Hartshorne

The other big Why is why are you doing what you're already doing? So a lot of organizations have already invested in this space they've already bought in consultants, they've already built a framework, they're already doing activities. But why did they choose that approach in the first place? And then why isn't it working? So we have to, we have to understand all of that before we can do the survey because what the survey then allows us to do is to dig into those issues a bit further, as well as just cover off the workplace wellbeing network that I already alluded to, with those those two sides.

Bobbi Hartshorne

Then once we've got those two factors, we can look at them together and say, well, you're saying you want to achieve x, but your current approach isn't doing that. And your employees are still struggling with this factor because of this situation. And so what we're then able to do is move on to the s the strategize element of the WISe process, and help them to use all of that insight, use that quantitative and qualitative insight and really drill down on a strategy that is going to help them achieve their why by unpacking the identified issues that we got at the ice stage, so so that's what we do. And then after we've done that, we've got a lovely strategy on a piece of paper. Well, it's it's next to useless when it's only on a piece of paper, it's now about engaging, it's the E phase of our why's process. You have to start engaging people. And there's two to send you two sets of people you need to engage. The first one, of course, is your employees. So how are you going to build them up, get them on board, get them bought into the process, get them contributing to it, and building a culture around wellbeing. And the second people, you have to engage professionals and specialists and that they could be you know, sleep specialists or office design specialists or manage management and leadership specialists, you know that there'll be a whole mixture of things so that that that phase is really important, as well. And it's really cool actually the way that that plays out, Matt, because those professionals that we bring in, and we've got network of people we can rely on, it's growing, seemingly daily, they don't come into an unknown quantity, they come in at the point that we've already understood the why we've already done all that quantitative data and analysis. So we're able to point them in the direction of the specific challenge that we're trying to target with their solution. So they're not trying to create a solution blind. They've got some real tangible insights themselves that make their impact much greater. And then once you've done all of that, and you've started to embed some different solutions, you're Of course going to want to know whether it's working. And that's where we bring in our reevaluation whether that's we won't rerun the whole system again, or whether we periodically, you know, look at a particular area on a smaller scale. And we can be quite agile with that now with technology and dashboards at our disposal to be able to dig in to a deeper or shallower level, depending on the need of the organization at that time.

Matt Morley

Is that then again, based on let's call it employee satisfaction, because often it's this question from the CEO CFO character. We're going to do all of this so what are the bottom line results we can expect?

Bobbi Hartshorne

the thing that is so awesome about wellbeing is that it improves almost anything that a CEO cares about. So a high wellbeing workforce is more productive, and more engaged, they're more satisfied, they're more innovative, they're more collaborative, they're more creative, they're far more likely to stay. So retention, they are also far more likely to recommend your employer or your workplaces somewhere for others to come in. So it helps with recruitment. And you get better team cohesion, you get better team creativity, and essentially, it just elevate everything. And if there's a specific thing that they're particularly targeting, so let's say they've got really low engagement or really low productivity, then we can certainly engineer this strategy initially, to specifically seek to drive improvements there. But what you find with wellbeing improved wellbeing in general is that as it as it elevates, it just pulls everything up. It's really, it's really quite fascinating in that in that regard. And the other thing that often is overlooked is it as a result of all of this, it drives the bottom line. So we know that organizations with high workplace wellbeing have 2% - 3% better performance on the stock market, better customer loyalty, and better sales performance. So it really does, you know, I'm really not trying to over egg the pudding here. But when you have a high wellbeing workforce, everything else tends to fall into place. And so that's why we really discourage people from focusing on just something like resilience, or just engagement or just productivity, and rather look at well being because your your, your dividends, your return for an investment in well being will be so much greater and so much broader than if you just try and pinpoint one specific problem and neglect the other elements of well being, too. Yeah, lots of claims.

Matt Morley

Okay. And so if we then dig a little bit deeper into the, the wellness practitioners, so in terms of the employee experience, apart from contributing to creating some initial baseline data around how things are performing in the office at the moment, then in terms of the lived experience, what they're engaging with these practitioners who come in, and perhaps you could just a hypothetical example, or a real life case study of perhaps that mix of 234 practitioners that you might bring in that would have an immediate impact on on the employee experience, or whether it's sort of if it's a fitness or wellness classes, or the environment that they're working in, because that at the end of the day is the process and action, isn't it? It's it's the staff, here it is that the changes are coming and whether that works or not, and whether you need to tweak it a little bit. So typically, how do you see that playing out?

Bobbi Hartshorne

Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting. on a case by case basis as to as to which practitioner which approach you choose to invest in and in what order you choose to take them on? Actually, the aside from practitioners, I'll come back to that in a moment. But actually, there's a huge amount that you can just do internally, you don't always need external help with this. Sometimes the results and the strategy is about actually assessing what's happening internally, and, and working out challenges that you've got internally, that you can actually fix yourself. So it's not always about saying right over to a handful of people who are going to rescue your business, because because a lot of the answers exists internally, and you've already got talent who can do that. But where there is gaps in your experience or your knowledge or their specialist areas that your your organization's not familiar with. It could be a real mixture of things that we're seeing a huge rise, for instance, in sleep practitioners, as we increasingly understand the power of good sleep and the cost of bad sleep on everything that is human about us. We're seeing as a result of COVID and this big conversation around hybrid working and trying to attract people back to the office. What even is an office now? This question has just come up in the last six months where what we've always considered to be an office the purpose of an office, what an office should do. has just been blown out of the water. And in order to attract people back to these places that we call offices, and we're having to get very creative about what they look like how they serve us what function they fulfill how they enable success, so you're gonna definitely have a big push in terms of office design, and environmental factors that help to drive those things

Bobbi Hartshorne

I think you're gonna definitely see a rise in the need for mental health support, compensation and benefits design is going to change because cash is no longer King, as I already alluded to, and then probably on the less traditional side, I think you're gonna start to see a rise in wellbeing scientists like myself, who can who can help people to unpack that data, you're going to have people who can assess your strategy as an organization, and how well being can help you to achieve that, I think we're probably going to see a lot more team practitioners as the role of teams, especially with a hybrid slash remote working changes and challenges that are coming in. And also one of the big areas, I suspect what's going to be leadership or management training, we're moving from Hero leadership to servant leadership. And that is a massive shift in how you act, how you think, what you do, the decisions you make the way that you lead. And that's a real big area of development that also and sustainable leadership, which I don't mean sustainable in terms of environmental sustainability, although, of course, that is very important. I mean, sustaining yourself as a leader, as the world of leadership just becomes so increasingly high pressured? How do you maintain your best leadership capabilities by by having high well being yourself? And how do you then invoke that sense of, it's good to have a high wellbeing workforce and sort of that gets moved down the organization? So yeah, so I think there's gonna be some interesting developments in in that space. And then finally, I think it's probably going to be a shift in HR practices, performance management, or rather, it should be performance optimization, and employer branding, recruitment strategies, and the design of the employee experience, they're all going to be things that I think are going to grow in terms of practitioner needs.

Matt Morley

You've been using the term wellbeing throughout this conversation. And I think it's, I've read something on your site recently, where you tried to pick apart the two concepts of wellness and wellbeing, it can seem not irrelevant, but it can seem that the two terms almost just merge into one. But I was interested to hear your thoughts on how you consider wellbeing to be perhaps more of a 360 view of physically and mentally in a good place versus wellness that was perhaps more limited.

Bobbi Hartshorne

Yeah, I think how many, it's really hard now, because as you said, wellbeing and wellness is sometimes used interchangeably, but actually, they do have slightly different definitions. And they definitely have different histories. And for me, wellness generally refers to sort of an individual person's physical and to a degree mental wellbeing. Whereas wellbeing has a broader and deeper meaning than wellness as it incorporates life satisfaction, accomplishment, motivation, purpose, engagement

Bobbi Hartshorne

I think wellbeing is something that's more easily applied to groups, which when we think about the workplace is important in terms of the wellbeing dynamics of teams who are being dynamics of departments of offices of regions, etc. So, you know, there's there's that kind of dual individual versus group application of wellbeing that's harder to express in wellness terms. I mean, the International Labor Organization describes workplace wellbeing as related to all aspects of working life from the quality and safety of the physical environment, to how workers feel about their work, their working environment, the climate at work and working organization. And why does it matter? Well, because the lens with which you understand wellbeing or wellness, it really doesn't matter what you call it, but the lens by which you understand it is going to massively influence your strategic approach to it. The types of practitioners you engage in the types of consultants you gain, you engage the data that you're looking for, if it's if it's understood in the more limited historic realms of wellness, there is a risk that you will miss out on the opportunities to explore Read through that much deeper lens of what we call well being. And typically we see well being referred to in the science and the data as opposed to wellness. So I kind of tend to feel that it's a slightly more rigorous subject. Well being as a more rigorous subject and wellness.

Matt Morley

Yeah, I get it. I like that. And we haven't touched on your location. But you obviously straddling two countries, in a sense between the UK and Dubai, the UAE. Now, how do you see those two locations differing in terms of interpretations of workplace well being? Are you seeing certain things that have much more relevance or importance in the UAE versus in the UK, for example, or vice versa?

Bobbi Hartshorne

You know, what, in many ways, it's not as different as you might expect. And there's some strengths and benefits to both that have sort of come out actually, in the last four or five months that I've observed, the thing we have to understand is that well being is universal. how we approach it, how we solve it, how we understand it, how we address it, the degree to which we're open to do that varies from culture, to culture, but the actual ingredients are factors that contribute to a human's well being are, are the same the world over. And, you know, our cities and any major city anywhere in the world that has a diverse cultural population is going to have issues and challenges and opportunities because of that. variance.

Bobbi Hartshorne

My, my gut feeling is that a lot of the issues are prevailing, the world over, they're not unique to particular cultures. So again, coming back to this shift from Hero leadership to servant leadership, that is happening in the West as much as it's happening here. race and gender inequalities that are still prevailing the world over old habits, dying hard in in kind of very highly bureaucratic, very highly hierarchical issues. These exists here as much as they exist in the West. For me, I think the only major hurdle is that there is probably a slightly delayed discourse here. And that may be the conversation hasn't been as open for as long in the Middle East, in the Gulf region, as it has been in the West. So people's kind of openness or understanding or literacy around the topic is maybe slightly lower here. But in some ways that actually map presents an opportunity for this region, because because the well being conversation and the understanding of well being has matured so quickly, and our data and best practice, evolution has been so fast. Actually, I find that sometimes the West is carrying a bit of old baggage in this space. And a little bit of like, Well, we've been on this journey for five years now. And nothing's changed or little has changed. And so there's a frustration there. Whereas the Gulf region is joining the conversation at a much more advanced stage and a much deeper understanding of the science behind it. And so they don't have to shed their baggage before they can engage at this higher level, which in many ways could present a really, really cool opportunity for them to leapfrog some of the resistance that we may be seeing in the West. And actually, that has definitely played out. I have had more attraction and interest and engagement from organizations in this region, including Saudi and the UAE than I have yet had in the UK, where you would expect the conversation to be much more mature.

Matt Morley

Nice. Sounds like you're you could be in the right place at the right time. So really insightful conversation. So thank you so much for your time, how can people reach out and contact you? Where can they find you online?

Bobbi Hartshorne

Yeah, so the best place to contact us is bewellwise.com we've got some really great free resources for people there, we've got a free to download white paper, which explores the current challenges with wellbeing and how to improve them. We've got a online self assessment tool where people can go in and answer a handful of questions and then get some tailored advice into their emails.

Matt Morley

Alright, listen, thanks so much for your time. It's been fun!

Hotel gym design - a consultant's view

BIOFIT IS THE HOTEL GYM DESIGN CONSULTANT FOR LUXURY RESORT BRAND IKOS

(article first published on our sister website biofit.io here)

what does a hotel gym design consultant do?

It may seem obvious but in reality it’s not that simple! First, some context. Most hotel or resort gym designs are wrapped up in a wider architectural project, with a space allocated for the gym, then flooring, lighting, electrics, ventilation and mirrors installed, before a recognized equipment brand is called in to equip the entire space with their products.

As such, there is no specialist ‘gym design’ going on, nor is there a gym concept developed that fits in with the context of the hotel, aligned with current fitness trends and the hotel’s target market / guest demographics.

hotel gym design as a ‘usp’

This situation occurs because the gym is more of a box ticking exercise than a priority. It is unlikely to generate any revenue for the hotel so is more of an obligation than a Unique Selling Point in itself - for us, as hotel gym design consultants, this is a huge missed opportunity.

In the IKOS Resorts group based in Greece we found a brand that understands this completely and has decided to turn their gyms into genuine features of the guest experience.

creating a hotel gym concept

Wooden flooring, white walls, TV screens and tightly packed rows of Technogym equipment is not our idea of a gym concept', although for many hotels this is deemed sufficient.

Hotel brands that want to stay ahead of the competition and wish to tap into the huge wellness market, should look to develop a concept for their gym first before deciding on the interior design or equipment.

What type of fitness training are the hotel guests doing at home? Do we want to give them everything they have in an urban gym or gently encourage them to try something new while on holiday?

Are we looking for a more natural, eco-friendly style or a high-end, sophisticated aesthetic with the equipment choices? Do we want to offer just strength and conditioning or promote more focus on stretching / mobility and outdoor fitness training in the fresh air?

All of these questions and answers go into making an innovative hotel gym concept that avoids the same, standard cookie-cutter approach favored by 99% of hotels but that is already being replaced with more inspiring hotel gym concepts. The revolution is coming!

gym equipment selection

Selecting hotel gym equipment should, in our view, be seen as a central part of the gym design process. Going to one brand and asking them to fit out the entire gym is always going to result in a standard response.

Every gym equipment brand has their high-value products that they want to sell as many of as possible. They also have a clear style that defines their products, almost becoming part of their brand in many ways.

The design aesthetic and commercial interests of the equipment supplier, in other words, are rarely aligned with delivering the best guest experience possible that connects with the aesthetics of the hotel or resort.

For that, you will need an external gym designer who works with multiple brands and can curate a bespoke equipment selection to match each hotel or resort’s personality, budget, floor space and target audience.

designing an outdoor gym for a hotel or resort

One of the most obvious trends in hotel gym design right now as we emerge from the COVID crisis is the surge in demand for outdoor training facilities where guests can exercise in the fresh air, without worrying about wearing a mask, spreading germs and so on.

Ideally an outdoor gym location should provide shade from the summer sun as well as a view onto nature, a space that is entirely closed in may offer privacy but we are hard-wired to appreciate perspectives that give us a view into the distance.

Outdoor hotel gyms can either be functional fitness facilities with kettlebells, dumbbells, exercise mats, and sandbags, or a combination of functional fitness training gear with a calisthenics rig permanently installed in the allocated area.

gym flooring design considerations

For indoor hotel gyms we like to work with sustainable cork flooring or a cork-rubber mix tile that provides additional comfort underfoot. Beyond just aesthetics, we also consider sustainability, indoor air quality, acoustics, durability, maintenance and the type of training that will take place in each zone of the gym, meaning flooring and equipment layout must go hand in hand.

Outdoor hotel gyms can consider flooring options that include grass in dry climates, sand or specific outdoor gym flooring tiles in locations that have higher annual rainfall.

Wood or wood composite decking is also an option, albeit a more expensive one and perhaps better suited to mind-body practices such as yoga classes a hard floor is going to need reinforcing as well as additional protection on top wherever there are heavy weights being used.

hotel gym interior design for wellbeing benefits

We are specialists in biophilic design in gyms but we consider wellbeing interiors to be a more all-encompassing strategy that does not necessarily include plants, nature and greenery, instead it focuses on creating a space that has functional health benefits for the gym users.

We do this via improved air quality, wellness lighting, acoustics planning, access to healthy nutrition and drinking water, space for mental wellness such as a meditation room, as well as optional biophilia solutions such as natural fabrics, patterns, materials and, yes, plants.

email us to discuss your hotel or resort gym design project

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Further reading:

• Sustainable hotel brands in the UK

mental wellbeing clinic design - the soke, london

The ‘Green & Healthy Places’ podcast series explores the role of sustainability, wellbeing and community in office real estate, residential property, hotels and healthcare facilities today.

Episode 27 is with Dr Chi-Chi Obuaya of The Soke in London, UK a private mental health clinic that has re-defined the mental wellbeing clinic for an upmarket clientele, setting a new benchmark in the process.

We discuss the cultural differences between UK and US in openness around mental wellbeing, the impact of Covid on our relationships at home and in the office, mental health champions in the workplace, why having an off-site venue for discussions around mental health is preferable to an in-office solution, designing an interior for mental wellbeing, the parallel with boutique gyms and private clinics in terms of aspirational positioning and how working on your inner game can make you a more effective manager through empathy.

An indoor environment shouldn't reinforce the fact that you feel unwell, that you're a “patient”. We wanted to create a space that really made people feel nourished, and the design features I think tick the boxes in that respect, but also to be aspirational. 

Dr Chi-Chi Obuaya

GUEST / DR. CHI-CHI OBUAYA OF THE SOKE, LONDON, UK

• https://www.thesoke.uk/

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-soke/

• https://twitter.com/TheSokeUK

• https://www.instagram.com/thesokelondon/

HOST / MATT MORLEY

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattmorleylux/

• https://www.instagram.com/matt.aspiotis.morley/

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI - excuse typos!

Matt Morley

Chi-Chi, welcome to the show. I'd really like to dig into your role as Head of the Clinical Board for The Soke so could you talk to us about what that has involved for you so far and how you see it evolving over time?

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

Really excited to be here, Matt, good to see you again, as well after all these years. I'm a Consultant Psychiatrist here, I trained as a medical doctor specialized in psychiatry, and I focus on adult psychiatry so I see anyone aged 18 and above, with a range of mental health difficulties, including depression, anxiety, problems related to birth, trauma related issues, addictions.

I'm the Clinical Lead at The Soke - a behavioral health center in the heart of London, we're coming up to our one year anniversary. And the whole premise of setting up The Soke was really that within the UK, there are plenty of mental health professionals that people can see. But we found that there's still massive stigma around mental health and accessing care. And we just wanted to ease that process for people by having a really high quality service that has a beautiful environment, encourages people to come forward and supporting that by offering them very good quality care in an environment that is conducive to promoting good mental wellbeing.

Matt Morley

I think that really comes across in terms of the space that you've created, and clearly that's one of the key attributes in the experience on offer. But in terms of the mix of resources on the team, and the range of services that you offer, presumably you each have specialisms, but there seems to be this interesting client service director role that is atypical, or less common let’s say. How is your mental wellbeing team structured?

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

Yes, so our clinical model is a multidisciplinary one, I think we recognize that in private practice, you can certainly access a whole range of mental wellbeing therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and it can be quite difficult for people to navigate through the system, and to really understand who they need to see and what skill set that person needs to have.

So most of us have a pretty broad range of people we would see with a vast range of conditions. But within that, there are areas of interest. So for me, I still work within the National Health System. And I see people with ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We have therapists who have a particular interest in supporting people who have, for example, body image issues, who might have disordered eating, but maybe aren't quite meeting the threshold for eating disorder diagnosis.

I'd say generally, one of the themes is that we're trying to be quite proactive and preventative. So a lot of healthcare services are set up to treat illness, and that lends itself to seeing people when they're already really unwell. And there's certainly a role for that. But we're trying not to offer that acute care rather to catch people before they fall into major difficulties.

We have a broad range of child, adolescent and Family Services. So we're working with couples, parents, right across the age span. So really from from birth right through to old age. The multidisciplinary model is key in that we meet on a daily basis as a team, discuss potential referrals, discuss clients who might be seeing a range of us within the team. And it's then bringing our different bits of expertise together to think about how we can holistically support people from a mental wellbeing perspective.

As I said, we're just coming up to our one year anniversary. So there's still plenty of room for growth, and we want to be able to offer a wider range of services, such as nutritional advice. There are a vast array of therapies. So we're really at the starting point, and we want to add to the clinical team there.

Our client services manager is really the go-to person to help people navigate through the team, because it can be quite daunting and the reality is that when people are seeing therapists, they sometimes don't know how to benchmark that, or to get a sense of what progress they're making.

We're data driven, we have outcome measures and we try to be very goal oriented. The Client Services Manager is the person that can think about some of the services we maybe don't provide, but can signpost people externally for that, and where there are challenges where people do feel stuck therapeutically, which happens, it's not a sign of the therapy being of a poor standard, it just happens that sometimes you don't have the right fit with an individual therapist. We're really trying to think holistically, systemically, I think the multidisciplinary aspect is something that has often been missing within private healthcare.

Matt Morley

That really resonates with me having been through a period of about six months of therapy myself and feeling that it was very much as if we were operating in a complete bubble, there was no third party around to bounce ideas off or to sense-check how it was all going. What you've just described having another person, not in the room exactly but right outside would have been so helpful.

Having a beautiful space in which to physically connect with someone in person rather than online would have been good too!

To pick up on something you've alluded to that earlier, the idea that it's prevention rather than cure. And I wondered how you feel as a Londoner, if there is a change, that's already happened, or it's happening around acceptability of discussions around mental health, the idea of not waiting too long before you pick up the phone or walk through your front doors, for example, when you feel that something's reached a point where it's arguably not too late, it's already become critical.

In the US we'd we'd imagine in places like New York, it's far more common that one should engage with these things, almost on a regular basis, not just for six months, but perhaps semi permanently, how do you see culturally where London's at in terms of this dialogue now with around mental health?

UK-US cultural differences in talking about mental wellbeing

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

Yes, great question, we're on the journey, we're certainly not at the level of the US, in terms of it just being really ingrained in the culture and something that wouldn't make you bat an eyelid. If you and I were having a conversation and you said, I've just come from my therapy session, that would just be a perfectly normal thing.

The UK is still quite conservative, and we might feel a bit awkward. If somebody said that in the middle of a conversation, we are getting there, there have been massive public mental health campaigns, trying to de-stigmatize mental health, both within society and I think particularly within the workplace.

the impact of Covid on mental wellbeing

I would say that the the covid 19 pandemic has forced people to have these conversations because guess what, it's affected people in every way you can imagine. And I think it's made the language of mental health difficulties much more accessible to people, because they can understand when you start talking about grief, for example, which in British culture, we're not great at doing. People can understand it, because it's actually affecting people directly, or people that they know, given what's happening.

Work has been disrupted for a lot of people. People have lost jobs. They've been put on furlough schemes. They felt that their jobs are under threat. They've been working from home and that's equalled stress. They've been trying to homeschool children too, that's very difficult. So I think the conditions are ripe for that conversation to move forward. It is moving forward. I'd still say it's a little bit too much towards the the reactive end. I when people are experiencing difficulties, that's when they're accessing help. And our vision is that we'd like to support people who kind of think you know what, I don't see anything wrong with just having some exploratory therapy just to take stock of things. Even if there isn't Externally what we might regard as a major issue. And I think that's where people are in the state. So I think we'll get there. But it's going to be a process.

Matt Morley

You mentioned the the impact of what's happened over the last year and a half on mental health in the workplace, and the impact on corporates, large businesses, and how there is clearly a need for there to be a wider conversation in the office.

How do you as a company or yourself personally engage with the business end of mental health, because it does feel like that suddenly become such a critical piece now within our overall wellbeing strategy in the workplace. What does that look like for The Soke?

Workplace wellbeing and mental health

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

There's no one size fits all solution. I think that's the key thing to understand. And you use the word ‘conversation’’, I think the key aspect is to be a part of that conversation, and see where it goes. The reason I say that is that different sectors, different businesses within those sectors are at very different points in terms of their recognition of the scale of the problem when it comes to mental health challenges, and also what they really want to do about those problems.

To give an example, at the end of the scale is just dipping one's toe into the water. There are lots of mental health campaigns now across the calendar, we have mental health awareness week, which is often a focus for businesses. And those businesses may get in external speakers. And we've been part of those conversations. I think with any of these initiatives across a range of issues around social injustice and lots of challenges around the workplace, that really is the start. However it isn't enough on its own. All that really does is it raises awareness. And it gets people thinking and ultimately businesses need to decide what's best for them, we try to support that process.

At the other end of the scale, we've had really good engagement with companies that massively want to change their culture. And that could look like having mental health, first aid training, having champions across the organization, having a culture of supervision, which creates opportunities for conversations amongst peers and one's colleagues, through which discussions around mental health again, can just naturally flow. So those are some of the workshops that we offer to corporates. And it really just depends on on how much time, effort and resources they want to invest in.

One of the really interesting things has been to observe from the outside what different corporates do. I'd say that things have moved in a healthy direction over the last 5 to 10 years. A lot of corporates felt that the right solution was to bring a lot of these services in house, that might include offering GP services or psychological therapy services in the house. We have a fantastic space here. And what we find is that there can be reticence from employees about accessing services in house among senior leaders, they see it as too much of a reputational risk.

Amongst more junior colleagues, there's often a culture of competitiveness, and they find that they're worried about their job security if they're accessing the mental health suite, on on floor x within the building. So often, these initiatives are well meaning but they don't really quite cut it in terms of people really accessing them. Often people will even in very well resourced organizations seek external help, because they're more comfortable with that. So we want to get to the stage where Businesses really understand that and they're able to engage with us in that fashion, because often the employees want to do that way. It might be convenient for them to access us in this increasingly fluid working environment that people have at a time that suits them in an environment where they're more relaxed, and we've put in some features to really to bolster the client's experience, and that's probably going to work better for them, we feel.

Mental health officers in an ESG strategy

Matt Morley

You mentioned the mental health officer role. And it's come up on my radar, having done some work with a real estate developer in London, on their ESG strategy. - environmental, social and governance. Mental health is now part of that remit. So if you have a pension fund putting money into a project and a real estate developer the annual report on their ESG depends partly on their approach to mental health in the workplace.

I just thought that was an interesting combination, because the role of the mental health officer is purely to identify a problem and then get that person to pick up the phone, send an email, or make contact with a professional, passing on the issue to the experts in other words. Nothing more nothing less.

I remember thinking that makes total sense, not trying to resolve something themselves, but having the right person on the end of the line and just joining the dots so that that person feels comfortable in taking action.

Interior design for mental wellbeing

That leads us then into the idea of having a physical space that is not the office, but you might get there having been recommended via your corporate, your employer, you then rock up to the soak. And from what I've seen online, your private clinic’s interior space just does not look like anything I've seen in terms of mental health clinics, I think on some level rewriting the rulebook of what it should feel like and look like when you when you go for one of these sessions.

For those who haven't seen the website, can you describe the type of environment that you have there? I mean, there seems to be sort of Scandinavian influences, vintage furniture, it's like a it's like an interior design showroom. As much as anything, it looks beautiful!

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

Absolutely, I think you're spot on. And that is all by design. I certainly wish to take absolutely no credit for it. My role is to focus on the clinical work. But our founder, Maryam Meddin, had a vision. We've talked about the fact that we want people to be able to access care in a way that really feels normal. But the problem she identified was that the environment, and we've got some of the best clinicians in the world in London, I think, New York's up there, but London is about as good a place to practice psychiatry, psychology anywhere in the world.

The indoor environment shouldn't reinforce the fact that you feel unwell, that you're a “patient”. As you said, when you go around a lot of hospitals, which have fantastic clinicians, practitioners offering really high quality level of care, the environment just lags behind. We wanted to create a space that really made people feel nourished. And the design features I think, tick the boxes in that respect, but also to be aspirational.

Aspirational boutique gym designs compared with most private mental health clinics

Lots of people go to gyms now, we don't think anything of it, it's a pretty regular thing to do. And you just go maybe in your lunch break, and you go back to work, and it's not a big deal.

Boutique gyms have become a bigger part of our lives. When they first launched, there was something very aspirational about them. And so the aesthetics support about view that you went to a gym and you just had that wow factor. And that's exactly what we're trying to do here. So you come into reception, it doesn't feel clinical, the sofas are really comfortable. You feel relaxed, it's a bit like being in someone's living room, and a nice one at that.

One of the things about seeing a mental health practitioner in London is that people tend to be very busy. So you leave a session and then you're back out onto the main road and you get on with your day. But actually, we wanted to make people feel that they weren't being kicked out of the building, that they had that time to reflect, and just to not feel rushed, particularly when they're talking about some quite challenging issues.

So one of the key design features would be our pods - spaces next to the therapy rooms, where you can just sit back very comfortably, read a book, have some time in a darkened room to reflect on your session, we have some evidence base technology that supports people, one of these is alpha stem, a device that delivers a microcurrent to your ear lobes. It's a small device, you put it on for anywhere between 20 and 60 minutes. And it has evidence for supporting people in improving their sleep, and also in reducing anxiety levels. And it's going to be approved by nice the National Institute for care and excellence in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder.

We see a lot of young people, and they have parents. And so we're able to give something to the parents when they're hanging around, So that's thinking about the family as a system. And we don't just talk the talk, we're able to do that by by linking the building to the therapy directly.

Matt Morley

That reminds me of some work I did in the past around with a hospitality client, we were looking at the guest journey and identified this pain point when you're checking out of a hotel or resort and you know the holidays over and guess what you get slapped with a huge bill and then you're sort of just spat out onto the street again. So how could we rewrite the script on that to turn it into a moment of delight?

After a therapy session you may well be feeling a little vulnerable. You might not want to go straight out into the into the hustle and bustle of London street again. So creating that third space between the outside world and the therapy room and allowing someone just to chill is very innovative, I think.

Create a wellbeing interior design that appeals to men as well as women

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

If we go back to your example. It's about recognizing who the client is. And we've done some work around that as well. So yes, the environment, broadly speaking, allows people to have a really great experience. But we also need to understand who our customers are. And so we wanted an environment that had these soft features. But to say very bluntly, one that isn't feminine, per se, because we have a lot of male clients, we know that men are not great at talking, generally speaking, there's been a lot of work in the public domain around getting men to talk about their mental health difficulties.

So they're a big target group in terms of this whole de-stigmatization process. Being in central London, we know that a lot of our our male clients are going to come from a corporate background. So we wanted to make sure the optics weren't suggesting that we're some sort of hippy or New Age service. So we wanted soft, but also very professional. And I think we strike the balance just right.

Matt Morley

So if we then follow that thread a little further, what would you say are typically the red flags that take place before someone .looks for help, for example, someone in a corporate environment? What should we be looking out for in terms of cues?

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

I think it's important to recognize that there are a broad range of mental health conditions and one of the traps we sometimes fall into as psychiatrists when we're asked this question, we think about the more severe end.

So I do see people with really severe depression. People who've experienced significant trauma, even people who might have a psychotic illness. And we tend to go for that, but there's so much in the middle that we miss. And I think your question speaks to the person that that might be undergoing significant stress over a period of time. It might be work related, it may have nothing to do with work. And it could be very much to do with their personal circumstances. And so it's a lot more ill defined. And we know that stress affects people in many different ways. But in keeping with the idea that we want to get people, maybe before they present with a severe depression, I think it's understanding some of those themes around stress and how it manifests for people.

So the sorts of concept I'd want to get across would be pretty high level. And we might talk about people who are thriving. And it's just as it sounds, it's when you've got that spring in your step, you're very outward focused, you feel energetic, you're paying pretty good attention, broadly speaking, to exercise, your your nutrition, you're engaged with friends, family colleagues, and you've got a I don't like to talk so much about work life balance, there are people who have very busy jobs and work long hours, but you're paying attention to the things that give them a sense of energy and enjoyment.

I think particularly in the current context, burnout is one of the key aspects people need to be looking out for. And that builds up over a period of time, where there's that loss of attention to the things that give one a sense of rejuvenation, and replenishment.

At the other end of the spectrum, we might think about the concept of languishing. And it's just as it sounds, you know, the energy levels are down, you start to become a bit withdrawn from colleagues, you're just not quite on top of things at work. And one experiences significant stress. And one of the things we're mindful of is that people can experience this cliff edge experience where they're functioning outwardly, for a period of time, but where stress is building up, it can hit you very quickly. And the cliff edge term comes from the fact that you can very quickly go from outwardly functioning to really not functioning very well at all. And that can have significant implications within the workplace. But of course beyond that, as well.

Matt Morley

Is it rather like an athlete having a strength and conditioning coach, they might have another one who's their mental coach? If we assume that a high performing executive or indeed any professional who's trying to be at the top of their game, do you think there's a case to argue for their having someone on their mental health team, such as a life coach?

a word on executive performance

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

Certainly it’s best not to wait until something goes wrong. I’m biased so you may guess that my answer is going to be yes, it will be a great idea. I think it's really important to be very clear about what the role of that individual or team would actually be. There are psychologists who work in corporate organizations, and may be termed ‘performance coaches’ or ‘psychologists’.

We've been quite clear about what our perceived role is, and that's why I said there are different conversations with different corporate clients. What we don't see our role in doing is saying we're going to come in, and by engaging with our intervention, you impact the bottom line. If that happens as a result of optimizing employees wellbeing, reducing sickness rates, people being happy at work and so on , then yes of course, we want that. But that's not a direct goal.

I think if I use the analogy of a sports person, and there have been a lot of sports people coming forward, people who've played at elite level, who talk about the fact that everything was geared towards winning and performance, and it wasn't actually looking at them as individuals. And there could be a lot of resentment that sets in for people who outwardly appear to have these amazing lives living the dream. And it's far from that. And I think that's relevant to the workplace as well.

We're not here to just help the organization, we actually want to focus on the individual. In the same way, with an elite athlete, you want to look at them holistically, and say, how do we support this person not to run faster, or to put in more minutes in whatever team sport they're in. But to really focus on their wellbeing, that will, of course, have the direct knock on effect, that they will be able to focus on the challenge that they have, be it in the sporting arena or in the workplace. So yes, we want to engage in those conversations. But we want to do it with real clarity about what we're actually trying to achieve. And I think businesses need to wake up to that aspect. It may sound counterintuitive but actually, this is the way forward.

mindfulness, empathy and the inner game

Matt Morley

Certainly from my personal experience in doing this work, it became very much complimentary to my mindfulness meditation, which by itself was getting me somewhere, but I felt perhaps not to where I wanted to be. Combining the two was a magic formula for my mental game.

I think the point I'd ask people to consider is that by loving ourselves, we're able to give more love back out to the world. And if you're managing people in an organization, if you're managing a team of 10-20, however many people, empathy is critical.

So much of that can come from being able to love and respect yourself first. And knowing what your own triggers are and why you react in a certain way, or why you struggle to get into someone's head, the way a particular person rubs you up the wrong way, that's a real problem, because they're on your team yet somehow you still have to handle them every day and get the best out of them and nurture them.

It's not about friendship, it's a professional relationship. But still, I think, this type of work that we do on ourselves, has so much benefit, not just for us, the individual. but for those around us. I think for me, that was almost this unexpected benefit, a knock on effect that I felt able to connect more easily and in a more honest way with those around me, and particularly people I was managing at that time.

Dr Chi-Chi-Obuaya

That's the point I was alluding to, when I said at the starting level, it's get a speaker in to give a half hour talk for Mental Health Awareness Week, what you described, actually enables cultural change, but it requires a conversation. We don't just have an off the shelf package for organizations. But what you have articulated there is where we want to get to with organisations, but we fully understand that it requires leadership, it requires a bit of knowledge about the mental health landscape, what different providers can offer.

Where you want to get to as an organization that absolutely is on the money in terms of where we want to go. And in our workshops. That is what we try to do we go through that journey with people in understanding a bit about their own mental well being. And the key word is empathy, and just being able to understand what's going on for other people. But yes, the journey starts from within, absolutely spot on.

Matt Morley

Thank you so much for your time. It's been great Chi-Chi!

talking wellbeing interiors with design well studios

The ‘Green & Healthy Places’ podcast series takes a deep-dive into the role of sustainability, wellbeing and community in real estate and hospitality.

In this episode we’re in Portland, Oregon in the US with Michelle Ifversen of Design Well Studios - optimizing built environments for wellbeing.

We discuss a term that is more common in the US than in Europe, namely ‘building biology’ - a combination of healthy building strategies and Biophilia or nature-connectedness.  

Her in-person and virtual assessments of residential environments address issues affecting the health of occupiers, the risks of off-gassing from flooring and wall paint, how to mitigate the risk of Electro-Magnetic Fields (EMFs) in homes and how to safely manage your smart home technology. 

Michelle has a lot of strings to her bow, having co-developed a lab test for indoor air quality, launched her own collection of biophilic nature-inspired artworks and delivering landscape design services for clients as well to bring the outside world indoors. 

She’s devoted to all things natural and healthy in the home environment, so we had lots to talk about!

EPISODE NOTES 

GUEST / MICHELLE IFVERSEN / DESIGN WELL STUDIOS

• https://www.designwellstudios.com/

• Indoor air quality testing

• Botaniculture artworks

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI - EXCUSE TYPOS

Matt Morley

Welcome, Michelle, thanks for joining us. Really nice to have you on board all the way from Portland, Oregon. I wanted to kick things off just with an overview from your side onwhat you do with design well studios and how you got to where you are today.

michelle ifversen

Thanks for having me, Matt. I've been inspired by biophilic design and healthy living spaces for quite some time now. I grew up in Santa Barbara, California, beautiful place, but everything grew there. And we lived in an area where it was a little bit more damp. And so I developed a lot of allergies and suffered with that. And everybody's like, oh, you're allergic to mold? Well, mold is an allergy, but it's not supposed to be inside of you...

michelle ifversen

I love science, I grew up watching surgeries, believe it or not. But My mother is a renowned landscape architect. And my father was a builder. My birth father was a sculptor. So I love art and design as well. So the the science part and the design part, really, you know, I love I've always loved that. I wanted to become a doctor. And I was taking my anatomy classes. And long story short, I walked in to do my cadaver labs and the formaldehyde was so overwhelming that I couldn't complete it. So I went to art school in Europe.

Matt Morley

It sounds like an interesting combination between art and science and an element of medicine and perhaps some influences from landscaping. And some point that leads you towards biophilic design and wellbeing design then?

michelle ifversen

Exactly, it was infused in my environment. And whether I liked it or not, it was happening, when I was designing my son's room 20 years ago, it was very difficult to find healthy building materials or healthy material furnishings. And so I researched heavily, and took a while to find one place in Oregon, actually Pacific Rim furniture with no toxins, no, no adhesives that were, you know, bad for you. And so I started that path while I was a designer and doing information architecture for high tech companies.

michelle ifversen

I moved back to Santa Barbara after living in a couple of different places on the west coast. And met a naturopathic doctor. And so we got to chatting. And she had a house call and noticed how gnarly their environment was, how it was damp, it was off gassing. And we got together and we created a company that that did these house calls these environmental assessments and then later on, I got into building biology and studied all about building science healthy building and remodeling and electromagnetic field testing EMF and really dove deeper into VOC is an indoor air quality. Okay,

Matt Morley

so there's lots in that. So we're let's loop back around to the building biology piece because I think that's it's really valuable information. But you mentioned the scene in Portland, Oregon 20 years ago. And if you like struggling to find anywhere that was delivering on this concept of sort of healthy materials and healthy furniture, how are things today and how does it compare, for example, with what you see, for example, down in California, in terms of the rest of the US, there are certain parts of the world that seem to be really pushing ahead and with availability Now for these things or leading from the path, or leading the market, how is your local scene?

michelle ifversen

Well, I'm not shopping for cribs anymore. But for healthy fabrics and furnishings, it's not fabulous. I mean, you definitely still have to source and a lot of this stuff comes from Europe. And it comes from California. So we do have a mattress manufacturer here that gets natural latex material and he makes beds and so I source a lot of those for my clients. You know, I do a lot of used furniture have you and repre upholstery, it. There's a real upholstery company here that does all sustainable upholstery, and natural latex and wool and things like that, too. It's there are some places, but especially furnishings. Really, really tough. really tough. There are some places that do I work with a lot of artists that will create furniture for me, right, so we'll design furniture together and for jobs, and so will source you know, really nice sustainable wood and I, I coached them on healthy finishings and adhesives and things like that to, to make that. So it's still in that creative stage. But it's not readily available, where you just go walk down the street, and here's an eco store, like in London, you know, they have a lot more to offer.

Matt Morley

Yeah, I think I think probably the reality is that, in most even major cities, still, there's a sense that it's a it's a niche market, but it's it's then about availability. And you're right that the European market is now pretty strong on that. But that, yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean we have direct access at retail, but we can get to things pretty quickly within the European market. And there's some, there's someone out there doing everything that we need. And I think that's, that's a real sign of the times. And I think it'll just carry on, we don't know how far it'll go in terms of becoming mainstream, but I think it'll become increasingly accepted. So let's look back round then. Because you mentioned building biology. And I think, you know, those are perhaps two words that don't necessarily go together or that Oh, yeah, for sure. Give us the give us a 32nd intro into building biology from your perspective.

michelle ifversen

Building Biology is about building science and and creating built environments that simulate nature. So breathable walls, you know, healthy indoor air space, air quality. You know, you know, great flooring without adhesives, and it really trying to mimic outdoors to indoors. And you know, I love technology but we have to put a limit on it, there's a right way to use it safely. And we can talk more about EMF later. But building biology is just that it's breathable, livable spaces that support humans. So I call it human code, rather than building code.

Matt Morley

That's an interesting take on things. And then so when you do your environmental wellness assessments, then I'm guessing 99% of the time you're going into spaces that are not built along those principles. So they're not buildings that have a builder nology concept behind them. So in fact, probably the opposite, right, you're going in, there's some kind of a problem that's been identified, whether it's visually something that's appearing on the walls, or there's a health issue for residents of the home, would that be correct?

michelle ifversen

Absolutely. Yeah. Most people get to me from their wellness providers, that they recommend having them check out their home, or they are they're like, I've gone down all this health, these, this this road to you know, having their health being compromised, and they think that there's something is cut stemming from their environment, right? So they're, it's kind of a detective work, they want to figure out where the source is coming from. And that's a lot of our business. It's, it's not as sexy as his biophilic design. But it is a supportive work, and I really enjoy it. And I've helped a lot of people over the years determine what's going on in their environment, because it's so they're so used to their environment. They're so used to their home and they're, they're not objective, right. They're like they think that's normal things are normal that off gassing of the paint of the of the flooring is normal.

michelle ifversen

You know, I've got so many cases where people will build brand new homes or their remodel and they'll put luxury vinyl tile. I don't know if you have that in Europe, but it's Yeah, yep. It looks great. It's beautiful, easy to clean, whatnot. But it a lot of them have adhesives in it that with formaldehyde, formaldehyde and metal off gas up to 15 years, especially if they don't have a system, an air system that will purify it and filter that out. So I do on site assessments here locally in Portland. And then now since pandemic, I've had to there's to do more virtual assessments. So I've been doing virtual assessments for people all over the country, and I work together, don't assume they work together. But I've connected with a toxicologist and immunologist that works with people all over the world. There. There are situations where they test their blood for mycotoxins, mold, and they want to know what to do about their environment. And so I come in and consult with them and do a virtual assessment through, you know, laptop or FaceTime, and take a look at their environment. And we have a really lengthy questionnaire to determine. And I've been able to help a lot of people that way, this feels really good.

Matt Morley

And so if you were to do an in person assessment, which presumably in a local context, post COVID, will become the norm again, for you or the preference.

michelle ifversen

I found myself getting exposed to mold and to chemicals. And so I know how to, I know how to what supplements to take, I know I sauna, and I know how to do that. And we're the gear, but it's not something that I, I want to do so much anymore. comes with a health risk rate.

Matt Morley

Right. And he mentioned EMF stem. So for those that perhaps aren't aware of what it involves, why you would need to test for it, and how you identify it, what's your process there.

michelle ifversen

So a lot of people come to me when they are looking to purchase a property, right? Like yesterday, I just did a property that was right next to a corridor where it's people run up and down it and above it, there's transmission power lines. So they wanted to know there, this person is very active, they're very healthy, they want to know what's going on. And so they think that, hey, there might be a connection, I want to check it out. So I go and I do an assessment where I check first gives me electric and magnetic fields. And we adhere to the precautionary principle, from building biology standards between you know, what's, what's low to high, and the health risks that could be coming from that now. There are a lot of studies, studies are still happening. But like with 5g, it's so very new. So there's not a lot of studies out there. There's studies with 2g and 3g. But 5g is completely a different animal, a different beast, it's small cell microwave radiation, and it has to be close not for the way. But when you're close to it, it's definitely it's definitely more harmful. I shouldn't say I don't want to go down that road too much.

michelle ifversen

When it comes to EMF, like I have a cell phone, but I use a case that has that shields it I'm hardwired with Ethernet and my computer, we don't have Wi Fi here, we have our Roku, which is a television. It's kind of like a Apple TV. And it's hardwired. So we still have the benefit. We have a outdoor speaker auto stereo, we plug our, our stereo into it. So it's all connected and it still sounds fabulous. So there's ways to do it. You know, I've been doing a lot of these smart homes and they're very savvy. They're very cool. I mean, you can talk to your your or not talk to you but find out how many eggs are in your frigerator I love the site. I love technology. I love it. But is it necessary and how much do we need? Right? And so

Matt Morley

It's a fascinating moment in history with two things going on in parallel - a return to nature on the one hand and a massive technological explosion on the other. Reconnecting with nature via biophilia isn’t about going backwards but nor do we want to neglect our evolutionary history completely, that’s the risk. So we end up with this dichotomy between the two tendencies, it can be hard to bridge the two sometimes I feel.

michelle ifversen

Just around air quality, then because I am conscious that that's going to be one of these think like hot hot topics for a few years to come for obvious reasons. So yeah, how do you work with indoor air quality? And what sort of techniques are you thinking about in terms of measuring and also improving indoor air quality?

michelle ifversen

So I was thinking of what you're saying about technology, they have the, the white the apps on your phone that can check your air and things like that. So that's that dichotomy you were talking about, like, yes, it's great that you're checking your vo C's and your your air and whatnot and your health of your home. But then you're using Wi Fi, right all over to us that purpose. So we don't do that.

michelle ifversen

We have a developed a kit with, with the lab here in the US, that tests for over 500 different voc volatile organic compounds, or chemicals. And it's a tube that you put on the test to the pump. And it's about an hour and a half test, and it just takes in the data, holds it in the tube, and then we send it off to the lab, and then we get a very professional lab report back that I go over with my clients. And it goes to the source where the where it's coming from. And so it's very, it's a great tool to analyze your air what's going on, if you did sit or remodel, if there's something going on in your environment, you think you don't know what that odor is or what's happening, we were able to determine what you know, where the source is coming from, and then to help to consult with them to remediate it.

Matt Morley

So it's like a deep dive analysis of the indoor air quality at a specific point in time,

michelle ifversen

right is a blood test. Yes, like a blood test for your body, right. And so it's a, it's a great way to know what's going on there. And we test for mold, vo C's as well. So if there's something going on that way, and then we have a isolated formaldehyde test, which is fantastic, because you don't have to strip away the other chemicals to get to that particular chemical. It just is a pure appear to us. So we can ship these. And people can buy these pumps, and they hope they have them for tool in their home. And they can use them in their office or car, their van build, they're there, they're there, kids dorm, or their, their their parents assisted living place and they can use it in or they can use it again after they remediate. To have that it's it's it's, it's a great tool.

Matt Morley

I think the the the underlying concept there is that there is there are now just a plethora of low grade and not that effective air quality monitors out there. And this Dyson fan in the corner of my home office here would it would be included in that it just can't work it out. If it's not, it's not the standard that we need in order to get a really decent look. And most of what's happening sort of desktop monitors are not going to get there. So I think the idea of having what you're describing as a, like a blood test for your and then perhaps, you know, slightly more slightly more not medical grade better than an upgraded air quality monitor doing a sort of continuous analysis such as that aware and companies like that. And doing that, to me starts to feel pretty comprehensive

michelle ifversen

it's good to have the constant monitoring, it's great to do that. But it's also, you know, important to note that we don't want people living in fear, right? We want them to be able to be go come home to their space to go to their workspace to feel inspired and not worried that there's something in their environment that's going to harm them. So it's really good. I feel like I give people a lot of peace of mind, especially with EMF testing. Like for instance, some people's dishwashers are very hot, right? And so a lot of people prep around their dishwasher. And if you're trying to conceive a baby, that's probably not a good thing. Right? So it's just good to know where, what your what's the pulse of your home, and how to operate and function. And then when you move to a new place, you know, figure that out again and then you're like you know how to navigate and and shield or just know, to not hang out in that particular area like a lot of people put their electrical panels or theirs Aren't leaders, your bedrooms or spaces where you spend a lot of time.

michelle ifversen

So that's that's a constant radio frequency coming at you all the time, preventing a lot of dirty electricity. And like I'm helping a woman on the coast who has a two acre property and she's building a home. She's got a she's got a two year old and she wants I'm consulting with her on placement of where the smart meters should be. And not near his bedroom, not near areas over there. You can opt out and not haven't had the radio frequency on there. She doesn't have any health issues, but it's just a preventative. You know, it's a it's a good, good way to know about that. So a lot of I do a lot of places that, you know, you'd be shocked where they there's no regulation here in the US that I just found now that the the newer homes are going to be more regulated where they put the gas meters, they have regular radio frequency as well. But what about all the existing homes? There's nothing about that there's no education, there's no shielding, there's no they don't try and opt out. So it's, it's, it's a hard fight sometimes to be able to reach a lot of people with this, but I prevail. I keep trying

Matt Morley

that you get into the study more strategically surround healthy interior design as a concept and almost sort of healthy healthy buildings and healthy real estate development or refurbishment projects. Right. Now, it's a term that I think we're seeing more and more of everybody has, I think their own interpretation of but when you talk about healthy interiors and healthy interior design, what do you interpret that to mean?

michelle ifversen

sourcing materials and furnishings and finishes that are non toxic, that are that are not going to off gas that are not going to give them trouble. I've had clients who just purchased a regular mattress and that given them sort of a thought body burden, toxic overload that's created them to be multiple chemical sensitive from one mattress. So it's just it's really good to and who knows their story before Do you not I mean, they could have had other past exposures but just a healthy interior really is about quality air. That's that's more than most important healthy building materials insulation is a huge one. And making sure that your your crawlspace your attic is is clean, and not not too not too damp, not too humid. And just really shoring it up in in, you know, the healthy design too. It's not just about the building material furnishings and things like that. It's it's space planning, right? It's bringing in greenery, it's its views, it's it's where you function and operate in your home.

michelle ifversen

I'm in my office which was a spare bedroom that we created. And there was no window towards the backyard of a lovely backyard with the with with a garden and beautiful vegetation that I had no access to in here when I moved in here. And so my husband built or made a window. So I could see it. And so it just it makes me want to come in here. And since I'm not in the field so much I'm I'm more inspired to be on the computer and have these podcasts and these meetings and work with my clients. They're so having a view of nature is is the landscape design, outside in inside out. So that's that's a really big piece of the way I design and I work with people on their landscape and their yards to their gardens. So they can be where they're sitting have a beautiful view, or there's a fountain there or a special plant that they like or a tree or something like that. So it's not it's sort of Yeah, it's it's a nice way to design and people seem to really appreciate that.

Matt Morley

That then you get into the concepts of biophilic design & biophilia. And I think what you're describing is really sort of direct forms of biophilia where it's it's live plants, but I know you're also so I indoor landscaping or indoor outdoor landscaping. But I know you've also done a project whereby you've co created it seems a collection of biophilic artworks, which to me would look like indirect forms of biophilia a way to connect with nature but through a print so the original artworks How did you go about that? What was the story behind that?

michelle ifversen

Yes, so very cool story. And it's, it's a It feels like the most wonderful project because it's My mother. My mother is a very renowned landscape architect who has done so many projects all throughout California Santa Barbara, Montecito, Napa Valley, the Bay Area. And here in Portland, and she is retired now and a few years ago, I've been I've been trying to, and she went to art school. I mean, she's a she's an amazing artist and painter, but she has not painted since she was in college. And so I was very inspired to, I bought her canvases and, and paints and things like that. And she slowly started getting into it. But then what really took off is that I'm a photographer, I've been a photographer for years, I was I started out when I was in art school in Europe.

michelle ifversen

I love photographing nature. I love photographing wega I hike, I'm very active, and I go and I photograph the macro of a mushroom close of a mushroom open. Just having that perspective, deeper into that that lens. And I would bring my photos, I would send them to her on my phone, and she would just be inspired and just this light bulb hit with her and she started painting them. And then she started painting indoor plants during the pandemic where I wasn't going out so much. So we kind of went in, right. And so she started painting these beautiful monsters and these palms and ferns and I put them all in my my studio here and we put them in the house and it's just really invoked such a positive mood. And so that was that sort of the start of our biophilic prints and we're opening up a store on Etsy and going to be selling them on the on the site as well and and just been just really have fun with it.

Matt Morley

Like it your husband making windows out into the back garden for you got your mom making up works. Seeing things now as we're looking ahead as we're sort of, I think there's this feeling of cautious optimism for the next six months. But how are you seeing things I know, it's been a tough hustle over the last 18 months for most of us working in this game. But it does feel like there's perhaps just this opportunity now, right? When what the themes we've been talking about for a while, uh, suddenly becoming a little bit more understood and appreciated. Are you picking up on that? Are you feeling optimistic for the next six months? How do you see it,

michelle ifversen

definitely, definitely, I feel like this is that it's a breath of fresh air and people are tired, they're hungry for it. You know, they are they've also spent a lot of time in their home environment, right, they've been like, and they realize that they can do better, and they want to do better, and they're still working, they're still working from home, they so they have income, a lot of people and so they want to dial in their homes, and then a lot of people have gone out into their gardens and gardening. So they really are taking pride and ownership into their own environment, which is feels really good. So it's for me as a environmental designer, I feel like it's just opened up this avenue of, of awareness and also desire to dial things in a little bit deeper and to and to realize that that's good money well spent, rather than, you know, an option of kind of a luxury, I should say it's looking more like they want to take care of their health, they want to take care of their their place. And they want to they want to source better materials. So it's the residential piece that I that we've talked about you and I is that, you know, having people you know, showing them how to do that and offering that service to be able to dive in deeper. So they're actually applying these things on a purchase just

Matt Morley

to give someone like a really top line in a few a few tips. Just the sort of the basics. We're talking someone who's perhaps not necessarily thinking today about creating a healthy home but right they have, as you say, over the last 18 months become more aware that actually yeah, it's important to think about that and perhaps they're not doing enough and therefore Okay, what are the what are the first few things that everyone should be thinking about?

michelle ifversen

indoor air quality, obviously, number one, test your air first. Find out what's really going on in your environment just to get a baseline, and then work with us on on going over the report and and really that's just like if you want to start somewhere and then if you know dial it in with an air purifier, you know and to reduce those vo C's and then figure out where the sources coming in, bring in more plants, definitely bringing more plants, you know put in a little humidor. It's called a monitor humidity monitor, and and check to see you know, how's your house functioning, you know, if you're living in Florida, it's going to be very high. So stick a dehumidifier in there. So just really kind of be one with your space. And then also notice where you spend your most of your time

michelle ifversen

For example, in your bedroom. When you wake up. What do you look at first thing I say it's a fantastic trick or tip I should say is put a photograph or put something inspiring are a beautiful plant or your you know your meditation station or something inspiring to look at when you wake up every morning. also pay attention to where you put your electronics. Try not to have them next to your bed. Turn your plate or your phone and your wireless router off at night. That's a good that's a good easy tip. Nice.

Matt Morley

Yeah. And the route is found the best way at least with that was finding these multi plug multi plugs with timers on so I set the timer so that just goes off at midnight. Totally goes back on if you do have Wi Fi Yeah, for sure. Like lots of great tips and information in there. Really cool. We'll link to everything on the show notes. And thank you so much again for your time. It's been awesome.

michelle ifversen

Thank you Matt. Really appreciate it. Love chatting with you. Thank you so much.

Wellbeing interior design and biophilia at Can Ikigai, Barcelona

Our wellbeing interior design for “Can Ikigai” is a haven of tranquillity and biophilia in Barcelona’s Gracia neighborhood

Wellbeing interiors and biophilia

In this project we combine elements of wellbeing interiors and biophilic design in response to the existing Japanese influences present in the apartment in its unfurnished state.

The use of solid oak sliding panels and flooring, combined with an abundance of natural light and an over-sized wrap-around terrace meant that we could keep the majority of the plants outside, leaving the interior space for a more minimalist, neutral palette of beige, white and grey-black.

Healthy home design

A living area has a Japanese futon paired with a quality mattress covered in a beige linen fabric cover sourced from our friends at La Maison in Barcelona. We then added a Libeco throw and some tonal cushions to ‘disguise’ the guest bed as a day bed / sofa, layering natural fabric over natural fabric.

Wabi-sabi design

An entire wall of bespoke shelving was decorated with objets d’art and tribal artifacts collected from around the world in particular Spain and the African continent, each one ‘imperfect’ in its own way and thereby creating a degree of visual consistency through materials and finishes. A reading lamp from Artemide then makes this a comfortable corner for reading, especially during winter months.

Biophilic kitchen

The kitchen is more of an architectural statement so required nothing more than some carefully displayed wooden chopping boards and designer kitchen goods for a keen chef to enjoy the cooking experience, such as a Vitamix blender and a classic Pavoni espresso machine. Plants, leaves and indeed fruit and vegetables themselves plat a decorative role off-set against the backdrop of a dark grey, rough ceramic wall finish.

Biophilia in a home office

A healthy home office set-up features a standing desk and stool combined with a floor pad for added comfort under-foot, a biophilic art installation on the wall by Flowers By Bornay, vintage Scandinavian side table in solid teak and a biophilic art print sourced from an at fair in South Africa.

Eco-friendly bathroom

Linen towels, reusable bottles for natural soap and shampoo, a plastic-free set of bathroom accessories and a smart lighting system for those dark evenings all ensure that this is a healthy bathroom experience that also does no harm to the planet as we removed all plastic completely. This requires proximity to a good eco-friendly store selling soaps and so on, in this case Barcelona had plenty to offer nearby!

Home gym design

Making use of the large outdoor space, we brought in a set of kettlebells, sandbags, dumbbells, medicine balls, bands and exercise mats to create a functional fitness training area with all the essentials, and just the right amount of design influence to ensure continuity with the rest of the property. A row of succulents lines the whitewashed balcony wall, keeping the connection to nature whilst working out.

TO ENQUIRE ABOUT OUR WELLBEING INTERIOR AND HEALTHY HOME CONSULTANCY SERVICES CONTACT US HERE